ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS

DUCHY OF LANCASTER

The Minister for the Cabinet Office and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was asked—

Social Enterprises

Mary Creagh: What recent assessment he has made of the potential for social enterprises to deliver a greater range of public services in the next five years; and if he will make a statement.

Liam Byrne: I believe that social enterprise does have a bigger role to play in delivering public services. Therefore, in addition to the several hundred millions of pounds of investment that the Government are providing, we have also established a ministerial group to look at how we can fast-track public service contracts to third sector organisations.

Mary Creagh: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Will he join me in congratulating Emma Wilson, the dynamic chief executive of Local Care Direct, which has 14 health centres across west Yorkshire and is opening a 15th centre in my constituency of Wakefield on 1 June? May I invite the Minister to come and see the fantastic work that Emma is doing in our area and look at how we can roll it out across the board? Dynamic individuals such as her have a real part to play in helping us to deliver our public services.

Liam Byrne: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. She is absolutely right to say that Local Care Direct and its management team are an inspiring example of what can be done as a result of the innovation and energy of the social enterprise sector. That is why the Department of Health has established £100 million of funding to help to back social enterprises such as Local Care Direct, why the Department for Children, Schools and Families is providing £100 million to a youth sector development fund, and why the Department for Work and Pensions is setting aside £100 million for social enterprises that want to create 15,000 jobs during this recession.

Alistair Burt: In the past year, unemployment has risen by 182 per cent. in my constituency. Biggleswade Baptist church is now operating a debt advice centre, and I suspect that there will be many more of those. Does the Minister believe that social enterprise has an important role to play in providing debt advice and counselling during what would appear to be a protracted period of recession, and how are the Government planning to help it provide that?

Liam Byrne: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that social enterprises have an extraordinarily important role to play in providing debt advice, not least because they are often able to provide services in communities in a manner that it is difficult for Government to match. In February, the Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), announced £42 million of extra help to support charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises that are seeking to do more, and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor provided for £20 million on top of that in the Budget. If there is anything more that we can do to help social enterprises in the hon. Gentleman's constituency to get their hands on some of that money, I would of course be more than delighted to help.

Julie Morgan: What plans does my right hon. Friend have to assist charities and social enterprises in bidding for contracts from the future jobs fund set up by the Department for Work and Pensions—organisations such as the Prince's Trust and the Groundwork trusts, and, at a local level, the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers Cymru, which is based at Forest Farm in my constituency?

Liam Byrne: I congratulate my hon. Friend on her work to champion the causes of those organisations. As a Government, we are absolutely clear that we will not repeat the mistakes of the 1980s, when too little help was provided to those losing their work, particularly the young—those under 25. That is why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor set aside £1 billion in the Budget to ensure that extra help is available to those under the age of 25 who have been out of work for more than 12 months to ensure that none of them needs to stay out of work, out of training or miss out on a volunteering opportunity. We think that social enterprises have a critical role to play in delivering that programme; that is why the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions announced £100 million of funding for social enterprises to set about the job of giving people new opportunities during this downturn.

Mark Pritchard: Would the Minister like to put on record his thanks to the faith-based organisations throughout the country that are doing such a great job? That is further to the comment of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) about the Baptist church, but it applies across the denominations, with Catholic and Anglican churches advising on drug rehabilitation and other social programmes, and indeed entrepreneurship programmes. Will he give a commitment to the House that where there is clear evidence of discrimination against churches, his Department will investigate and ensure that it is dealt with, whether that discrimination comes from local authorities or other public sector bodies?

Liam Byrne: I am very happy to give the hon. Gentleman that undertaking. If we want to come through this recession as quickly as possible and in a way that best protects families and businesses, we have to ensure that we are not only delivering help to families and businesses but doing everything in our power to ensure that communities are strong, because it is on the foundation of strong communities that we will build a different kind of future for this country. Faith-based organisations have an enormously important role to play, so it is important that they are eligible for the extra assistance that we are providing. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in arguing that the funding that we are providing through the Cabinet Office should not be cut back, and never should be in future.

Ken Purchase: The Minister has referred to the fact that the Chancellor is trying to boost the economy, and therefore demand. He knows, surely, that the voluntary sector prospers best when demand is increasing, and that it plays a significant and progressive part in providing services. However, may I remind him that until we have a serious council house building programme to fire up that part of the economy, it will be very difficult for the voluntary sector to make real contributions to the housing market generally?

Liam Byrne: My hon. Friend has championed this cause, certainly for the short time that I have been in the House. He is absolutely right that the renewal and regeneration of housing is critical to the future that we want to see in this country. However, there cannot be traditional housing projects as they might have looked 20 or 30 years ago. We know now from pioneering housing associations that there is far more that associations themselves can do not just to build houses and give people homes that are safe and secure but to equip people with skills and connect them with jobs.

Francis Maude: Is not the biggest barrier to the expansion of the role of social enterprises in providing public services the lack of appropriate finance for expansion? Would not the quickest way to fill that gap be the rapid establishment of the social investment bank? Does the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster agree with the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government? She said yesterday at an all-party group:
	"I'd like to say we have a plan for a social investment bank but we don't."

Liam Byrne: I think that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was referring to the fact that the consultation on how the social investment bank is to be set up has just been launched. As the right hon. Gentleman will know, legislation enabling that bank came into force only in November 2008. Because the Financial Services Authority will regulate the fund, it is of course vital that it oversees how the regulations are drawn up.

Francis Maude: The Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Bill was published way back in 2007, so the social investment bank has been a long time in gestation. There is an urgent need for it to progress. Why is it taking until this summer for there to be even a consultation paper on it? Will the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster undertake that when it is established, it will be an institution that is genuinely independent both of the Government and of Government non-departmental public bodies, so that it really commands confidence in the sectors that it is set up to support?

Liam Byrne: May I simply underline that the necessary legislation came into force only in November 2008? The right hon. Gentleman will forgive me for not prejudging the results of the consultation, although the issues that he raises are useful input. I believe that he would agree, however, that a social investment bank is not some kind of silver bullet in securing a more effective social enterprise sector in future. We know also that local authorities' contribution will be critical, which is why it is so important that we now ask the third sector's opinion about local authorities and their support for social enterprises. He will be as interested as I am to see the results. When we looked at how the sector rates local authorities, we found that of the bottom 25 rated councils in terms of commitment to the sector, I am afraid to say that 17 were Conservative.

Social Enterprises

Rosie Cooper: What steps he is taking to assist social enterprises during the recession.

Liam Byrne: Funding for charities, voluntary groups and social enterprises has doubled over the past decade to £11 billion, and therefore social enterprises face the downturn with unprecedented strength. We do believe that extra help should be available, which is why the Department for Work and Pensions is setting aside £100 million, why we set aside £42 million in February and why my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer set aside an extra £20 million in the Budget.

Rosie Cooper: The west Lancashire furniture recycling organisation helps people in my constituency by offering recycled goods and also provides employment and volunteering opportunities to those who face barriers to employment. In the past 18 months it has recruited 11 employees, five of whom were long-term unemployed or on incapacity benefit. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such social enterprises are integral to the social and economic strength of our local communities?

Liam Byrne: The social enterprise that my hon. Friend highlights has been an inspiration to many in the social enterprise sector and beyond, and we have been very keen to learn some lessons from its experience. It is part of a growing pattern of success, and indeed the sector as a whole grew its work force by some 20,000 in the last year for which figures are available. We are determined to help the sector do more, which is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions set out £100 million of support to help the social enterprise sector, including enterprises such as she highlights, create 15,000 jobs in the year or two to come.

Gregory Campbell: Does the Minister agree that, although many charities, citizens advice bureaux and faith-based organisations do excellent work in trying to get information to tens of thousands of people in Northern Ireland and throughout the UK about the benefits to which they are entitled, there is still a hard core of people whom the information appears not to reach? Does he also agree that we need to be much more innovative and dynamic in trying to reach those communities to ensure that they get what they are entitled to?

Liam Byrne: My view is that social enterprises can reach much further than many public services; they can reach communities to which public services have traditionally found it hard to connect. They can also often innovate in finding new ways of bringing public services together. That is one of the most important prizes that the groups to which the hon. Gentleman referred bring to the table. That is why cutting back the Cabinet Office budget by £100 million, as is proposed in some quarters, would be a grave error. It would diminish our impact on getting on with that sort of job.

Peter Bone: I am encouraged by the Minister's comments. Crazy Hats, a charity in my constituency, which deals with breast cancer and helps those who are recovering from it, wants to create a drop-in centre in my constituency for the whole of north Northamptonshire. Is that the sort of thing that the Minister would encourage? Could he point us in the direction of any funding?

Liam Byrne: That is precisely the sort of thing that the Government would like to flourish. For that reason, the Department of Health has set aside £100 million to invest in social enterprises. It sounds as though the organisation that the hon. Gentleman highlights is exactly the sort of enterprise about which the Department of Health would like to hear more. The fund is administered by Futurebuilders, and that would, therefore, be the first port of call for the hon. Gentleman.

David Hamilton: Would my right hon. Friend consider having a discussion with the devolved Parliaments? We should consider best practice, and not reinvent the wheel throughout the UK. Will he consider holding a meeting with the Secretaries of State for Scotland, for Wales and for Northern Ireland so that we can talk about how best to take social enterprise forward?

Liam Byrne: The Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Kevin Brennan), is having such conversations. Pioneering examples of what social enterprises can do differently are to be found in every part of the country, and it is vital that we ruthlessly exploit good ideas rather than constantly try to reinvent them.

Nick Hurd: The Minister's predecessor launched the £70 million community builders fund in July 2008 with great fanfare. It is there to help our social entrepreneurs and people who want to show leadership in keeping our communities strong. They need support at this time more than ever. Will the Minister confirm that, almost a year later, not one penny has been invested from the fund? Will he explain why not and tell us when the fund will deliver something more than a press release?

Liam Byrne: When those funds are announced, it is important to appreciate that not only Ministers like me are in charge of writing the cheques. It is important to give an arm's length organisation the task of running the fund and understanding how the money is best deployed. Sometimes going through the process of contracting for that delivery partner can take time. We make no excuses for getting the right partner in place to get the money flowing, but we will not subscribe to the hon. Gentleman's view that we should somehow wean social enterprises, charities or voluntary groups off public funding, because we know that it is vital to their success.

Open Source Software

John Pugh: What guidance his Department provides to other Departments on the use of open source software.

Tom Watson: The Government's policy is to use open source when it gives the best value for money. We are taking positive action to ensure that Departments and our IT suppliers do that. We published our new action plan on 24 February, including guidance on specific actions for Departments. The Chief Information Officer Council is driving the implementation.

John Pugh: The Government have talked a good game for some time about open source software, but have done very little. What more can the Parliamentary Secretary do to encourage Departments to implement real change and reduce the horrific cost and genuine inconvenience of software licensing?

Tom Watson: I understand the hon. Gentleman's arguments. Indeed, I read the transcript of his Westminster Hall debate last year, and I know that he proposes some positive ideas, which the Government should take up. The Government are taking up open source solutions—50 per cent. of Government websites use open source software and we are about to deploy Linux-based platforms, which will go to 300,000 NHS workers. In the spirit of open source, I ask the hon. Gentleman, who is a renowned expert in the field, to come and meet our officials, share some of his ideas with us and help us improve what we do.

Andrew Miller: Would my hon. Friend put this debate into perspective? Does he agree that most of the chief information officers would agree that open source has its place, but that open standards are a much more important part of the debate?

Tom Watson: They are a very important part of the debate. There is no doubt that open standards and interoperability are the means by which we will improve our IT sourcing. When we talk about open source, we should remember that it is only free to acquire and that we also must invest to maintain and sustain our systems.

Derek Wyatt: Open source and open standards are important, but I have noticed that BT offers a free laptop, a free website and free help to all our charities. The open source and all the things for charities are available for free, so is there a way that we can round it all up in one place, on the direct.gov site?

Tom Watson: I am sure that we could do that. In fact, why don't I talk to the chief executive of direct.gov and put that question to her?

Social Enterprises

Anne Snelgrove: What assistance he is giving to social enterprises during the recession.

Liam Byrne: I have already mentioned the strength with which the social enterprise sector faces this downturn. I should add, of course, that social enterprises can also benefit from the measures that we have put in place to help all businesses, including the £10 billion working capital fund and the £75 million capital enterprise fund.

Anne Snelgrove: That is good news. Phoenix is a social enterprise in Swindon that works with people recovering from mental health problems by offering them work in a mailing and assembly service. I should declare an interest, because I have used the service, paying for it through my office costs allowance, and excellent value for money it was. What can my right hon. Friend do in a recession to help secure longer-term funding for social enterprises, so that they can help more people?

Liam Byrne: The social enterprise that my hon. Friend highlights is part of a sector of some 55,000 social enterprises that creates a turnover of around £27 billion. That enterprise, flair and innovation will be especially valuable in helping to get Britain through this downturn faster and in a way that protects families and businesses. That is why the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has set aside £100 million to help social enterprises get people back to work. It is also why the Cabinet Office is managing a clear set of ambitions to help ensure that those with learning disabilities or mental health issues are part of social enterprises' work, because we know that those people, too, have a right to help and a contribution to make, and we are determined to unlock it.

Gary Streeter: Given that much financial support for social enterprises comes from local authorities, as we have heard, and given that most local authorities are tightening their belts in this recession, as they should, what steps will the Minister take to ensure that they do not take the easy option and slash their budgets for social enterprises, thus leaving a lot of disadvantaged and vulnerable people in this country without proper assistance?

Liam Byrne: It is important that we do a couple of things. It is important that we continue to invest in training those in charge of procurement and commissioning in local authorities. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me for saying that the budget for that would, I am afraid, be cut if we sliced £100 million off the Cabinet Office budget. It is also important for us to introduce a bit of transparency, which is why we have asked the social enterprise sector to rate local authorities. We published those statistics earlier this month. I am pleased to say that eight councils in the top 25 were Labour councils. I am afraid that only one was Conservative, but I know that the hon. Gentleman will be anxious to turn that situation around.

Ian Cawsey: My right hon. Friend will be aware of the fine work that social enterprises and charities do across all our constituencies, such as The Hinge, in Goole, which works with young, vulnerable and homeless people. That is a client group that, sadly, is likely to grow through this recession. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that there will be fast-track funding to help social enterprises deal with that difficult and growing client group?

Liam Byrne: First, may I praise my hon. Friend for the charitable work that he does? Organisations such as The Hinge will have an enormous contribution to make over the coming months, and the strength that they could acquire in that time could serve them well in regard to their long-term contribution to the sector and to the communities that they work in. That is exactly why different Departments right across Government are putting in place significant amounts of funding to help the sector over the next two or three years. That funding would be cut if we took the advice of some in the House. Once the money is in place, it is vital that we get rid of any impediments to getting deals done, which is why I am bringing Ministers together to clear those road blocks out of the way much faster.

Nicholas Winterton: Would the Minister accept that the country and the Government cannot do without charities, churches and volunteers? We have a deprived estate in Macclesfield, the Moss estate. The local churches—with the support of my own livery company, the Worshipful Company of Weavers, which has invested a great deal in the project—are putting a great many volunteers and community workers into that estate to help to reduce the deprivation and exclusion and the other problems that often go with exclusion.

Liam Byrne: I am very grateful for that example, because I was not aware of the contribution that the livery companies were making to this agenda. The hon. Gentleman underlines my point that we will get through this recession faster, and in a way that protects families and businesses better, if we build our work on strong communities. It is the faith-based organisations, charities, voluntary groups and, I now know, livery companies that are knitting those communities together.

Real Help for Communities Programme

Terry Rooney: What progress his Department has made in the implementation of the Real Help for Communities Programme.

Gordon Banks: What progress his Department has made in the implementation of the Real Help for Communities Programme.

Kevin Brennan: I am pleased to tell the House that the £16.5 million modernisation fund and the £15.5 million targeted support fund are both up and running, and have received more than 500 applications and expressions of interest to date. The volunteer brokerage scheme for unemployed people went live on 6 April, and nine regional roadshows have been fully subscribed. Last month, the Prime Minister appointed Dame Stephanie Shirley as the Government's first giving and philanthropy ambassador.  [ Interruption. ]

Mr. Speaker: May I ask the House to try to cut the conversations down? It is unfair.

Terry Rooney: I thank the Minister for that reply. I understand that Bradford's allocation is about £411,000. Can he tell me when that money will come through and how it will be distributed?

Kevin Brennan: Yes. Of the £15.5 million targeted support fund, which opened to applications on 29 April, Bradford will get £410,892, which will be delivered by the Bradford and district community empowerment network. If my hon. Friend has any organisations that he wants to steer in the network's direction, I recommend that he do so.

Gordon Banks: The Real Help website and documentation should be—and, indeed, are—really helpful, but I cannot help but think that MPs and the Government have perhaps not done enough to promote awareness of these services to the sectors that could really benefit from them. What can the Minister and Back Benchers do to make them more accessible?

Kevin Brennan: I am writing to all Members affected by the funds, which will be all Members of the House in England affected by the Real Help Now action plan. In addition, the Office of the Third Sector has already held nine regional roadshows, which have been fully subscribed. Business Link is a free business advice and support service, and it is also available to the third sector. In Scotland, Business Gateway Scotland provides a similar service, giving advice on what help is available to businesses and the third sector.

Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration

Tony Wright: If he will bring forward proposals to enable members of the public to bring matters directly to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Administration.

Tom Watson: The Government value the role and work of the parliamentary ombudsman. They also believe that Members of Parliament have an important role to play in assisting constituents with concerns about their dealings with Government Departments and public bodies.

Tony Wright: One of the great achievements of a previous Labour Government was to introduce the parliamentary ombudsman system, against the resistance of elements of the Conservative party. Is it not now time to give citizens direct access to the ombudsman, as has been recommended by successive occupants of the office?

Tom Watson: I have known my hon. Friend for longer than nearly any other MP, and his former agent, Jack Fleming, from the time of the former Labour Government of the 1970s, would have been proud of my hon. Friend's work to improve the machinery of government. Sometimes, I have to say that it seems that we have been discussing the ombudsman for that long as well. We know that 134 MPs said that they wanted to remove the MP filter, but I cannot honestly say to my hon. Friend that that is the settled will of the House. To be honest with him, I would also have to say that there is no settled view in Government either, but I undertake to take soundings from Members again to ensure that their views are properly reflected when we come to make our decision.

PRIME MINISTER

The Prime Minister was asked—

Engagements

Paul Rowen: If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 20 May.

Gordon Brown: Before I list my engagements, I am sure that the whole House will wish to join me in expressing our condolences to the family and friends of Royal Marine Jason Mackie, who was killed in Afghanistan last week. He and others who have lost their lives have served our country with distinction for the good of the Afghan people and for the good of democracy around the world. They deserve our profound gratitude for their service, which should not ever be forgotten.
	This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.
	Mr. Speaker, there will be a further opportunity to acknowledge your contribution and achievements in this House, but let me say briefly on behalf of all Members that your record of service to this House and this country has been outstanding over 30 years, and you have shown unfailing personal kindness to all Members on all sides of the House.

Paul Rowen: May I also personally express my thanks to you, Mr. Speaker, and associate myself with the Prime Minister's remarks and expressions of condolence to the serviceman who lost his life?
	There is widespread concern throughout the country and on all sides of the House about the Government's plans for the privatisation of Royal Mail. In that light, will the Prime Minister now reconsider those proposals?

Gordon Brown: We have put before the House—and our proposals are now in the other place—the problems that Royal Mail has to face up to. It is losing 5 million letters a year— [Laughter.] I mean it is losing 5 million letters in comparison with the number that were delivered in previous years. There is an £8 billion pensions deficit. I want to reassert to the House the need for new investment in Royal Mail— [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. I will not allow anyone to barrack the Prime Minister. It will not be allowed—and that goes for the Leader of the Opposition as well.

Gordon Brown: Many measures in the Bill are supported unanimously on both sides of the House, and the fact is that we have to get new investment into Royal Mail. That is why we have invited outside parties to express their interest.

George Howarth: May I associate myself with my right hon. Friend's remarks about those brave servicemen and women who have died in the cause of Afghanistan? A few weeks ago, the House debated the issue of the Gurkhas. Is my right hon. Friend in a position to give us any indication of what progress has been made on it?

Gordon Brown: As my right hon. Friend knows, we have a great deal of sympathy and support for those Gurkhas who wish to come into this country. Many of them have served our country and our Army with huge distinction over the years. We were the first Government to say that those after 1997 should be able to have residence and settlement in this country, and 6,000 have done so. We have also equalised pay and pensions, while at the same time raising the Gurkhas' pensions back in their own country. We said that we would listen to the voice of the House after the debate held a few weeks ago, and we are also listening to the views of the Home Affairs Committee, which has had hearings. The Home Secretary will make a statement tomorrow. I believe it is possible for us to honour our commitments to the Gurkhas, and to do so in a way that protects the public finances. That will be part of the announcement to be made tomorrow.

David Cameron: May I join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to Marine Jason Mackie of Armoured Support Group The Royal Marines, who was killed in Afghanistan last Thursday? Some of his family live in Bampton in my constituency, and I know that the whole country will join in their sorrow.
	I welcome what the Prime Minister said about the Gurkhas and the statement that will be made tomorrow.
	May I too join the Prime Minister in paying tribute to you, Mr. Speaker? I will never forget the kindness that you showed me and the advice that you gave me when I was a new Back Bencher in 2001. I know that everyone wants to thank you for the public service that you have given to the House and the country.
	This morning the Prime Minister said that a general election would cause "chaos". What on earth did he mean?

Gordon Brown: What would cause chaos would be the election of a Conservative Government, and public spending cuts.

David Cameron: So there we have it: the first admission that the Prime Minister thinks he is going to lose!
	I know that the Prime Minister is frightened of elections, but how can he possibly believe that in the fourth year of a Parliament, in one of the oldest democracies in the world, a general election could somehow bring chaos? Have another go at a better answer.

Gordon Brown: I am not going to support a programme of Conservative public spending cuts. But look here: the House has got to have some humility about what has happened in the last few days. We have got to recognise—all of us, in all parts of the House—that mistakes have been made by Members of Parliament in all parties. Having had the humility to recognise that, we also have a duty to sort the problem out. The only way to sort out the system is to go ahead and sort out the system, and that is what we are proposing to do.
	Yesterday we had good all-party talks involving the House of Commons Commission and all parties, and we made a great deal of progress. There is a lot of work still to be done, but I should have thought that what the public want us to do first of all, as this Parliament, is to sort out the problems and deal with them. And secondly, what they want is a Government who will deal with the economic recession.

David Cameron: Does the Prime Minister not understand that the best way to show some humility is to ask the people who put us here? The Prime Minister is so hopelessly out of touch. How can the answer to a crisis of democracy be an unelected Prime Minister? In past months, during this economic crisis, there have been elections in India, South Africa and New Zealand. They all have new Governments with a new mandate. The United States had an election in the middle of a banking crisis. Was that chaos? Is President Obama the agent of chaos?

Gordon Brown: I notice that at no point does the right hon. Gentleman enter into the policy issues that are at stake here. At no point does he want to talk about what would be the effect of a Conservative Government in this country cutting public spending in schools, hospitals and public services generally, or about what they would do in leaving people on their own in this recession. Our duty is not only to clean up the system in the House of Commons—and every Member has a responsibility to work on that now—but to take this country through the difficulties of the recession, and not say to people that unemployment is a price worth paying.

David Cameron: The Prime Minister says that he wants to talk about the issues. How better to address the issues than in a general election? The Prime Minister rightly says that the economy is the big issue. One of the biggest issues in our economy is the lack of confidence. Why is there so little confidence? Because there is no confidence in the Government.
	The Prime Minister says that he wants to get on with the work. The fact is that the Government are not doing any work. They cannot even organise a car scrappage scheme. We will not end the paralysis just by electing a new Speaker, or even by setting new rules; we must give the public their voice, and the country the chance of a fresh start. Is it not the case that the only way that can happen is through a general election?

Gordon Brown: I repeat: what would cause paralysis is Conservative spending cuts that would make it impossible for our economy to move forward. Look at what we are doing to help the unemployed at the moment: 100,000 people who are unemployed are being helped back to work, and every month 200,000 and more are getting back into work. The Conservatives have refused to support the money that is necessary for the unemployed. Look at our housing scheme, helping people to avoid mortgage repossessions—and again, the Conservatives have refused to support that scheme. I have to tell the right hon. Gentleman that the country would be longer in recession, with more debt and deficit, with more businesses going under and with more unemployment, if ever we had the misfortune of him ever being in power.

David Cameron: People will just hear the arrogance of a Prime Minister who will not let the people decide. The Prime Minister talks about paralysis—but this is what one of his own Members of Parliament, the right hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field), has said about Government paralysis:
	"Week after week MPs have been turning up but with...no serious work to do...there is no legislative programme to speak of. Even the debates are put on to fill in time...The whole exercise is vacuous."
	Can the Prime Minister not see how badly we need a fresh start? Two years ago he promised us a fresh start. Remember what he said outside Downing street, talking about a Government of "integrity and decency"? Well, that died with Damian McBride. He promised to renew trust in Parliament. Where is that promise today? He promised prudence; he promised economic stability; he promised a big house building programme. None of these things are happening. The Prime Minister calls elections "chaos"; I call them change. Why can't we have one?

Gordon Brown: One hundred and twenty thousand businesses are now getting help as a result of decisions we have made that the Conservative party would not make. Hundreds of people are getting help to get into jobs as a result of what we are doing, whereas the Conservatives would abolish the new deal. We have opened the 3,000th Sure Start children's centre—something that would be at risk under the Conservatives. We have a vast educational investment programme in our schools; the Conservatives propose to cut it. I have to say to the right hon. Gentleman that, yes, there would be chaos with public spending cuts under the Conservatives, and yes, it is an unacceptable way of going forward if a party is trying to have an election without even having a sensible manifesto, other than proposing public spending cuts.

Tom Harris: A business woman who owns and runs a small manufacturing company in my constituency came to see me last week to complain about the attitude of banks in lending to businesses such as hers. Does the Prime Minister understand that public support for the banking bail-out will entirely evaporate unless banks are seen once more to be lending to the small and medium-sized companies on which this economy depends?

Gordon Brown: I would ask my hon. Friend's constituent to go back to that bank and ask it to reconsider the situation, and to write to him and then to me. The banks have agreed in the last few weeks that they will sign up to quantitative agreements. That means that £70 billion of additional lending will go into the economy this year—£25 billion from the Royal Bank of Scotland, £14 billion from Lloyds bank, and money voluntary promoted by HSBC. There will be £70 billion of total additional lending. We are the only country in the world that has such a programme, where the banks have signed up legally to supporting additional lending. I believe that in the next few weeks, the flow of money will be increased as a result of that.

Nicholas Clegg: I would like to add my own expressions of sympathy and condolence to the family and friends of Marine Jason Mackie, who, tragically, died in Helmand province last week serving us, our country and the people of Afghanistan.
	Mr. Speaker, despite our differences in recent days, I would like to thank you for the immensely dignified way in which you made your statement yesterday —[Interruption.] We can now move forward to reform this place from top to toe. I am also pleased to hear from the Prime Minister that there will be a statement tomorrow on the Gurkhas, and I hope that they will receive the unqualified and full justice that they deserve— [Interruption.]

Mr. Speaker: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to be heard; he must be heard.

Nicholas Clegg: We now have a once-in-a-generation chance to change politics for good, but we will betray people's hopes and fail to offer a really different way of doing politics if all we do is remove a medieval expenses system, without fixing everything else. The expenses are just the tip of the iceberg. Does the Prime Minister see that, from party funding through to Whitehall secrecy, the whole way in which we do politics must now be transformed?

Gordon Brown: As for Whitehall secrecy, it was this Government who brought in the Freedom of Information Bill—and as for party funding, the Justice Secretary has brought forward measures to deal with that. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman, however, that, as part of the wider debate about the relationship between Parliament and the people and the accountability of Parliament to the people, we must listen to the views of people throughout the country. We must consult and hear what they have to say, and, as I said yesterday, we will put forward proposals on that in the next few weeks.

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Sharma.

Nicholas Clegg: rose— [Interruption .]

Mr. Speaker: Mr. Clegg.

Nicholas Clegg: Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker: I thought that there were two questions in the first one—but there we are.

Nicholas Clegg: Touché, Mr. Speaker.
	I am grateful to the Prime Minister for his reply, but is it not now time to get to the heart of the matter, which is that his Government are in power even though less than a quarter of the people voted for them? [Hon. Members: "Have an election!"] Of course we should have an election, but people do not want an election where all they will get is a few new faces but the same old rotten rules. Is it not true that any system in which so few votes give a Government so much power will always breed arrogance and secrecy?

Gordon Brown: Mr. Speaker, I was right to say that your generosity was unfailing to all Members of the House.
	The right hon. Gentleman's point about the wider reforms and democracy is absolutely right: we must consider not only how Parliament can be more accountable to the people, but how the Executive themselves can be more accountable. We want to do that in the context of enhancing the individual and collective rights of citizens in their own communities to manage more of their own affairs. I am happy to enter that debate, and we will publish proposals in the next few weeks. We have also previously published proposals on the electoral system, which is also a matter for debate—but I must say to the Liberal Democrats that the debate about the reform of the constitution is about more than simply that one thing.

Virendra Sharma: In view of the recent elections in India, the victory of the Congress party under the leadership of Dr. Manmohan Singh and his continuation as Prime Minister, and the recent developments in Sri Lanka, what steps is my right hon. Friend taking to involve India in bringing peace to that region?

Gordon Brown: I have sent a message of congratulation—I believe it will be on behalf of the whole House—to Prime Minister Singh, who is very respected not only in the region but throughout the world. I believe that we can make progress in a number of areas now that the Government in India are re-established after the election. First of all, we will be talking to them about Pakistan and about security on the border between India and Pakistan. Secondly, we will be talking to them about the world trade deal, which is essential. Thirdly, we will be talking to them about the contribution that they can make to the whole of the peace and security of the region, and about helping us and working with us, particularly after the Mumbai bombings, to deal with the problems of terrorism that exist there.

Nicholas Winterton: As a member of your panel of Chairmen, Mr. Speaker, may I say that you have been a kind and caring Speaker, and that that will never be forgotten? Does the Prime Minister accept that manufacturing industry is one of the only sources of sustainable non-inflationary economic growth? Sadly, the number employed in manufacturing has dropped from 4.5 million in 1997 to 2.73 million today. Will he and his Government ensure that they do not place any additional burdens, such as the increase in national insurance, fuel tax and regulation, on manufacturing industry? We want to be competitive. Please will he encourage, and not de-incentivise, industry and manufacturing in this country?

Gordon Brown: The future of this country will be built on modern manufacturing strength. In advanced manufacturing we are one of the great leaders of the world; we have some of the greatest companies in the world—they operate from Britain but are global players with huge strengths in new technology and in innovation. Our manufacturing strategy is to support our large companies and to encourage innovation so that we have small and medium-sized companies coming forward. We gave additional investment allowances for manufacturing in the Budget, our corporation tax is the lowest that it has been for many, many years, and we continue to support small businesses with enterprise grants; 128,000 businesses have now received some help from the Government during this downturn to get through these difficult times. As 50 per cent. of our manufacturing is exported, it is so important that the European economy moves forward as well; it is very important to us that we work with Europe so that we achieve growth and jobs for the future.

Martin Linton: On his earlier comments about political reforms, does the Prime Minister not agree that it is time to redeem an undertaking in our 1997 manifesto by calling, on the day of next year's local elections, a referendum on the establishment of a citizen's convention, which would come back to the voters within two years with proposals to complete the reform of party funding, to elect the House of Lords and to make every vote make a difference by allowing voters to vote for the candidate, the party and the Government they choose?

Gordon Brown: We have had some experience of constitutional conventions. One was the European constitutional Convention, another was the Scottish Constitutional Convention, and talks are also taking place in Wales between all the parties. If my hon. Friend will wait, in the next few weeks we will publish our document about greater consultation between the public and Parliament, and about enhancing the rights of the people in relation to the accountability of Parliament itself.

David Lidington: Can the Prime Minister explain why, at a time when youth unemployment is rising, training providers in my constituency are being told by his Government's Learning and Skills Council that their apprenticeship budgets for the next academic year will be cut?

Gordon Brown: We have invested more in apprenticeships for the coming year, and we have announced that we will fund 35,000 extra apprentices. I am happy to look at the situation in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but our determination is to support apprenticeships through this downturn—to invest in them and not to cut them.

Phil Wilson: Can my right hon. Friend tell me which is the best way to help people through these difficult economic times? Is it to cut tax for 22 million basic rate taxpayers, increase child benefit and provide extra help for 12 million pensioners, or is it to give tax cuts of £200,000 each to 3,000 millionaires, of which there are 19 in the shadow Cabinet?

Gordon Brown: To look at a proposal that, at this time in our history, would give just 3,000 millionaires £200,000 each would be completely scandalous—and to do that for 3,000 of the top estates in this country, whether they have a moat or not, is something that the public would be unable to accept.

John Baron: The 80 Traveller families on the unauthorised Dale Farm site in my constituency have now exhausted all their planning and legal options following the Law Lords' decision earlier this week. To avoid the misery of a forced eviction, the Travellers must now move on peacefully, but the situation could be greatly helped if the Government helped to identify transit sites outside the district—particularly as the Government have some responsibility for this issue because they stopped the council dealing with it in 2003. Will the Prime Minister have a word with his Secretary of State to try to resolve this sad situation?

Gordon Brown: This is, first, a matter for the council, but the Secretary of State will look at the matter and talk to the hon. Gentleman.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating Durham county council on its excellent and successful bid to be one of only two authorities to host the universal free school meals pilot for primary school children? Does he agree that such measures are necessary if we are to tackle childhood inequality effectively?

Gordon Brown: Proper nutrition for young children is absolutely crucial, and that is why the pilot project to give primary school children free school meals—something that worked when it was tried by individual councils throughout the country—is being supported by the Government. Newham, Durham and Wolverhampton will be the pilots, and they will test whether free healthy school meals improve children's health and well-being. Some £20 million in funding will come from the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, and that money is being matched by the local authorities. We believe that it will show that good nutrition at an early age makes a difference not only to health but to educational performance.

Robert Smith: The country has lost touch with the political system and with this Parliament. On the doorstep, it is clear that there is no confidence left in the Prime Minister's Government. Why does he not have the courage to trust the people and go to them and let them have a say on how this country should be run?

Gordon Brown: Mr. Speaker, we have work to do. The first work we have to do is to clean up the system in the House of Commons. It is for this Parliament to face up to its responsibilities, to change and to clean up the system. I believe that we have made progress, and the way to clean up the system is to take the action to do so. Secondly, we have a recession that we are trying to manage and come through. It is in the interests of the people of this country that we help people who are unemployed, help mortgage holders and help people with small businesses. I have not heard policies from people on the other side of the House that would actually do that.

David Hamilton: Twenty-five years ago, those on the other side of the House told us, "Get on your bike and find a job." After the miners strike, I was unemployed for two and a half years. During that period of time, I could not find a job because I was being blacklisted—and blacklisting is now rearing its ugly head again in the construction industry. Will this Government give us an assurance that blacklisting is not acceptable in the 21st century? It might have been for that lot, but it is not for this lot.

Gordon Brown: The blacklisting of workers or trade unionists has no place in the modern workplace. I said that only a few weeks ago, and I said that we would look at the matter. The Employment Minister has now announced that the Government will bring forward revised regulations to outlaw the practice of discrimination and blacklisting. We plan to move quickly on this. There will be a short consultation over the summer and legislation will then be brought to the House.

Brooks Newmark: The conviction rate for cases of rape has fallen from 19 per cent. to 6.5 per cent. in England and Wales, and to 2.9 per cent. in Scotland. Will the Prime Minister please explain why?

Gordon Brown: One of the reasons why convictions for rape have gone up in many places is the use of DNA.  [Interruption.] I think that Members of the House have to accept that DNA is an important means by which we have found and detected persons involved in rape—but I will look at the figures that the hon. Gentleman has given me and I will write to him.

Marsha Singh: Prime Minister, about five years ago Westfield started to develop a shopping centre in Bradford city centre. It should have been completed next year. The company now says that it does not know when it will be completed, and Bradford is left with a huge hole in the heart of its city centre. Will the Prime Minister urge Westfield to keep its commitment to the people of Bradford, and will he also let the House know what extra help he can give to regenerate cities such as Bradford?

Gordon Brown: Regeneration projects should be going ahead, and we will do what we can to help make that possible. When Government money is involved, it is usually being advanced so that the public works programmes can move forward. When it is a matter of private sector support, we are happy to bring together all the agencies to see whether there is a way forward whereby private sector money can be brought more fruitfully into the scheme. I am very happy to talk to my hon. Friend about the project.

Stewart Jackson: I was privileged earlier this week to chair a seminar held by the Family Matters Institute, the Grandparents Association and Families Need Fathers on the launch of the report, "Do Grandparents Matter?" When will the Prime Minister's Government make good the pledge made to me by the Under-Secretary of State for Justice, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), in January 2006 that grandparents should be treated with fairness and equity in the legal system in their heroic and unsung efforts to take care of their own flesh and blood?

Gordon Brown: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the decision in the Budget whereby grandparents of working age who are helping children with childcare can get tax credits as a result. That is one way in which we can help grandparents to help their families hold together and to work with other relatives who want to get to work. That was a big change that was announced in the Budget, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman can support it.

Alasdair McDonnell: May I take this opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to pay personal tribute to you for your great kindness, generosity and understanding, which you showed me when I entered this House four years ago?May I ask the Prime Minister what reassurance he might give those of my constituents who are struggling to keep businesses afloat? Is he aware that the banks are ruthlessly pushing many otherwise viable businesses over the edge by refusing reasonable loans to keep liquidity and cash flowing? They are also beginning to charge outrageous interest rates, far above what is reasonable or understandable. Can his Government do anything to pressurise these ruthless banks to free up lending in order to provide better liquidity until the better times come? Otherwise, good businesses are being pushed out of existence.

Gordon Brown: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying. There is clearly concern in all sections of the House about how banks can better serve the public during this economic recession to help us through it. I shall look at what he says about the bank if he will give me the names of the companies and the bank. The important thing is that in the past few weeks there has been a change of policy, and I hope that that change of policy will have an impact in every region and every part of this country. The change of policy is that for the first time—because we have given the banks an insurance policy that they pay for—they are now willing to lend extra money and are committed to doing so. The increase of £70 billion for the economy is very substantial indeed, and companies should now be getting the benefit of offers from banks. I urge the hon. Gentleman to go back to those banks and remind them of the quantitative targets that have been agreed, and of the other means by which the Government have offered to help small business, including through the Inland Revenue. I shall certainly look at the case that he has raised, but the important thing is that the banks are now under an obligation to lend.

John Barrett: With unemployment at over 2 million, does the Prime Minister agree that one way to create many more jobs and stimulate the economy would be to push forward with the high-speed rail network?

Gordon Brown: That is exactly what we are looking at.

Keith Vaz: I thank the Prime Minister for his comments about the Gurkhas, and we look forward to hearing the statement tomorrow. Another recommendation from the Home Affairs Committee is on human trafficking, which I know is a concern of his. Will he look at that recommendation, which asks the Government not to cut the funding for the Metropolitan police human trafficking unit? It is very important that we deal with the perpetrators of this very difficult and important crime.

Gordon Brown: I can say to the Chairman of the Select Committee that the unit will have an increased budget; it is not being cut. We are doing whatever we can to support it. We recognise the need for it in difficult times.

Parliamentary Standards Authority

Harriet Harman: May I strongly identify myself with the tributes to you, Mr. Speaker, that the Prime Minister has led today? I know that hon. Members on both sides of the House will want to have the opportunity to pay tribute to you. As Leader of the House, I shall make sure that an occasion is arranged before you leave the Chair so that we can all pay tribute to your generous and courteous chairing of this House of Commons.
	With permission, Mr. Speaker, and following on from your statement to the House yesterday, I should like to make a statement on the decisions made yesterday at the meeting of the Members Estimate Committee that you convened with the Prime Minister, the party leaders and the Chair of the Committee on Members' Allowances, and on the Prime Minister's proposals for a new parliamentary standards authority.
	First, I want to set out how we are dealing with the past. At the meeting last night, we agreed a process, proposed by the Committee on Members' Allowances, that will reassess Members' claims over the past four years and identify those claims that should not have been made and should not have been paid out because they were outwith the rules. We also agreed to make arrangements for repayment. The public are entitled to see a process of reparation and Members are entitled to know that this will be orderly and fair.
	Secondly, I want to set out the immediate steps that will be taken. The House has already voted to ensure that the threshold for receipts has gone down from £25 to zero and to introduce full-scope audit under the National Audit Office. But, in addition, the MEC meeting last night agreed to an immediate ban on claims for furniture, a cap on interest payments for accommodation at the equivalent per year of £1,250 per month and a restriction on any changes to designation of main and second homes. The meeting also agreed that Members who are married or living together as partners should be prevented from claiming more than one second home allowance.
	I understand that the MEC will meet later today to determine detailed changes to the Green Book to put into practice the principles on which the party leaders and the MEC reached clear agreement last night. That should give immediate reassurance to Members of this House and to the public, but, in order fully to restore public trust and confidence, we need more than reparation and reassurance: we need renewal, and to put in place a new system on a new footing.
	The House has already voted, on 30 April, to endorse the inquiry by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, which will come forward with its recommendations later this year. Once again, I want to place on record my thanks to Sir Christopher Kelly and his committee for their work.
	At the MEC meeting last night, all parties agreed to the Prime Minister's proposal that the keystone for any reform must be to switch from self-regulation to independent external regulation. We agreed that we should end the gentlemen's club approach that means that we set and enforce our own rules, and instead bring forward proposals for a new parliamentary standards authority.
	The proposal on which we seek to consult would see Parliament legislate to delegate specific responsibilities to a new, independent parliamentary standards authority, which would revise and update the codes of practice for Members of this House, investigate complaints where a Member of this House is alleged to have breached the code of conduct, take forward the implementation of the recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life on allowances and take responsibility for authorising claims for payment under the new allowance system. It would be able not only to disallow claims, but to require payback of claims wrongly paid out and to impose financial penalties.
	It is clearly appropriate that the new body should also take responsibility for such issues in the Lords, including administering and regulating the systems for peers' allowances, overseeing the code governing peers' conduct and the Register of Lords' Interests, ensuring high standards of propriety and financial conduct, investigating alleged abuses of the system and recommending any necessary sanctions.
	We in this House recognise that the principle of self-regulation operates differently in the House of Lords. It is clear that extensive work and consultation will be necessary to ensure the agreement of the House of Lords to the effective transfer of responsibilities to the new body.
	The new authority would also maintain the register of Members' financial interests in this House and deal with the disclosure of second incomes. Discipline issues that might require sanctions such as suspension from the House, which would have a bearing on Members' ability to perform their work, would remain a matter for the whole House through the Standards and Privileges Committee. Only the electorate, or those who are themselves democratically elected, should be able to prevent a Member from doing their work in this House.
	We have set in place the actions for reparation and reassurance. For renewal for the future, we look forward to Sir Christopher Kelly's proposals, and we further propose that the House move from a system of self-regulation to a system of statutory regulation. Although I know that it is hard to get a hearing on this subject now, as Leader of the House I will continue to argue, both inside and outside the House, that most honourable Members are precisely that: they are people who come into Parliament as a matter of public service, and are hard-working, decent and honest. However, we must recognise that, even before the allowance revelations, there was a problem of public disengagement and public cynicism, and a public sense of distance from Parliament.
	We must now seize the opportunity to promote a debate that will see proposals to change and strengthen our democracy move from the margins to centre stage, where they ought rightly to be. Parliament and politics are important precisely because there are deeply held, different views about public policy, but there is consensus among all parties that we need to put the reputation of Parliament above reproach, and we will. I commend the statement to the House.

Alan Duncan: I thank the Leader of the House for her statement. May I also thank you, Mr. Speaker, for convening yesterday's meeting with all the party leaders? Such a meeting could have taken place weeks ago without the need for your involvement, but the House and those who elect us will be grateful for the way in which you made it happen.
	Following the uproar of the past couple of weeks, we have at last taken concrete steps to address some of the unacceptable elements of an allowances system for Members that has attracted universal condemnation. Last night, we learned from you, Mr. Speaker, of the main points that were decided, and they go a long way to addressing the issues that were crying out for attention. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition last week outlined a clear list of what he wanted to see for all of us, which he has insisted on for his party. Yesterday's announcement was in many ways the same as that list.
	We will have, straight away, a strict regime to ban the flipping of homes just to exploit the allowances available. Capital gains tax cannot be evaded. A declaration about where one's home is will have to be open and clear. People will not be allowed to claim for plasma TVs or furniture, and there will be an annual cap on how much can be claimed for mortgage interest or rent. Will the Leader of the House confirm when she expects those revised rules to be up and running?
	The very fact that the proposals were endorsed by all parties, and the fact that the meeting took clear, practical action, should be welcomed by all who have so disapproved of the system under which we have been working. Will the right hon. and learned Lady confirm that it is the Government's continuing wish to proceed in everything that we are going to do in a genuinely cross-party way?
	In the meantime, Sir Christopher Kelly and his committee are working on recommendations for a long-term solution to the pay and conditions of MPs. In the middle of what can only be described as the most serious and revolutionary shift in popular opinion and in the reputation of Parliament in our lifetime, his committee is required to stand back from the fray and set out how a modern Parliament should look, and how it and its Members should be resourced. This is no easy task, and whatever people think of Parliament, I hope they will fully respect the integrity of his committee's efforts and show proper respect for his conclusions. May I ask, therefore, when the Leader of the House thinks the committee will eventually report?
	One massive structural shift that we in this Parliament must embrace if it is not to sink further in the eyes of voters is to relinquish the right to determine how we reward ourselves. We are here to legislate, to scrutinise, to discuss and to govern. We are here to represent the interests of our constituents, not to serve our own. For a long time, the Conservative party's policy has been to give up setting our own pay and allowances and to give that power to an outside body. Some sort of outside structure is long overdue. We also want to cut the cost of politics. Where in the reforms does the right hon. and learned Lady believe that that might yet be achieved?
	Behind all this is the need for massive parliamentary reform to bring this institution up to the requirements of the 21st century. May I therefore offer the co-operation of the official Opposition in proceeding constructively and responsibly to try to sort out this near constitutional crisis thoroughly and as soon as possible?

Harriet Harman: I thank the hon. Gentleman for the way he responded to the statement. He suggested that we work in a cross-party way, and I know that he is not just saying that. He means it in practice, and ever since he has been shadow Leader of the House we have been able to work together on a proper cross-party basis. We know that when we are looking for solutions to these issues, no party has a monopoly of wisdom, and when it comes to unearthing the problems, no party has a monopoly of virtue either, so we will work together across the House to sort them out.
	I agree that we owe a great deal to Sir Christopher Kelly and his Committee on Standards in Public Life. He has said that he will report later this year. To respect the independence of his committee's work, although we have asked the committee to work as expeditiously as it can to make its report so that we can adopt its proposals, it cannot be for us to set out the time scale. The committee must go through the processes as it sees fit.
	That is why it was important that the MEC yesterday—you convened it, Mr. Speaker—set in place interim measures. The shadow Leader of the House asked when those interim measures will be up and running. He and I, along with other members of the MEC, will meet later this afternoon. These transitional measures need to be up and running straight away, as soon as the detailed rules can be put together, which will not take long at all.

Don Touhig: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. I also thank you, Mr. Speaker, for taking the initiative of calling together the MEC and all the party leaders—all the party leaders—yesterday. You invited me to attend the meeting as Chairman of the Committee on Members' Allowances, and I was very pleased that the meeting accepted all the recommendations from my Committee, added to your own proposals. That was the basis for your statement last night.
	On the consultation on the proposed parliamentary standards authority, I hope the Government will consult and involve the staff of the Fees Office. They have served this place very well indeed. They help us in every way possible in trying to give us information and advice. Although we may feel bruised, they, too, feel somewhat bruised at present, as I know from a meeting that I had with them yesterday. I hope that in the consultation, they, too, will be asked their views on the proposals.

Harriet Harman: I am sure that we will need to engage with the invaluable experience and information that the Fees Office has accumulated over years of work on those issues, and that its contribution to the consultation will be very important indeed. I acknowledge the work of the Committee on Members' Allowances, which my right hon. Friend chairs. Its work paved the way for yesterday's agreement, and a great deal of work was done in advance so that the all-party in-principle agreement could be reached. I pay tribute to him as Chair, and to all Members who serve on that Committee.

David Heath: I, too, thank you, Mr. Speaker, for convening the meeting yesterday and for getting some overdue consequences from it. I also very much welcome the statement by the Leader of the House. I remember giving evidence to the Committee on Standards in Public Life some years ago, when I suggested that self-regulation for this place was on very flimsy foundations indeed and in imminent danger of collapse. That collapse has been all too self-evident, and the House has forfeited the right to self-regulation. Statutory regulation is now necessary, and I am pleased that the Leader of the House will now consult on that proposal.
	I welcome the immediate steps that have been set out as a necessary review of what has happened over recent years. The capacity to make the adjustments must be put in place. I welcome also the announcement by the Leader of the House that the MEC will meet today, because all Members need clarity about exactly what will be required from them over the next few days and weeks and about how the system will work. Some of it is self-evident, and it does not take a genius to realise that Members should stop buying household goods and stop some of the most egregious excesses and abuses that have come to light. However, there are other areas where Members will need guidance, so I enter one note of caution.
	I am worried that we may have inadvertently introduced a perverse incentive against Members renting accommodation and in favour of them entering into mortgage arrangements. That cannot be what the House intends or what the general public want, so I ask the Leader of the House to look carefully at that issue.
	I now look forward, as we all do, to the results of the deliberations of Sir Christopher Kelly's committee. I hope that they will be timely, thorough and give us the answers that we and the public want, and I hope that the House will be able to accept them without equivocation, so that we have a firm foundation for the future.
	Finally, I echo what was said earlier by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Hallam (Mr. Clegg) and what was referred to in the right hon. and learned Lady's statement: the matter now goes well beyond expenses. It is about the reform of Parliament and the political system, making the House work in a way that it has not done over recent years.
	Even this week, we have had the spectacle of a guillotine motion preventing proper debate of an important Bill. We cannot go on like this. This House must be able to hold the Executive to account properly and do its work properly. We need renewal of the whole political system. More papers and more proposals will not do that: action will, and it is overdue.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Gentleman said that he, like all Members from all parts of the House, wants to contribute to the consultation and approach it on a cross-party basis, and he reminded the House that, some years ago, he proposed changing self-regulation to statutory regulation. I acknowledge that there have been proposals from his party, which we have put into practice through the MEC system. Indeed, proposals from the Opposition have now been implemented, and proposals have come from Government Members, too.
	The truth, however, is that this is not a competition for ideas. All ideas from all parts of the House are welcome in contributing to the process. Whatever we disagree on—we disagree strongly on different issues, which is why we stand for different parties and fight it out at elections—we all agree that we want decent rules that the whole country respects.
	I did not agree with the hon. Gentleman when he talked about our "forfeiting" the right to regulate ourselves. In this day and age, the move from self-regulation, which is internal and not transparent, to public accountability and statutory regulation is the right move and a sign of strength. We are not forfeiting; this is the strong and right decision to take.
	I agree with the hon. Gentleman about the issue of clarity. For 650-odd Members of the House of Commons, there are 650 different sets of circumstances, and each Member will need to know how the new rules apply to their circumstances and how they can make their arrangements. The MEC will have very much in mind the need for clarity and swiftness in showing how the rules are going to work, so that Members can work out how they apply to them. He has already made that point to me, earlier today, and he is absolutely right to have raised it.
	The hon. Gentleman and the shadow Leader of the House also raised a point that has been made by a number of Labour Members. We must be aware that some people's rental agreements include services, utilities, service charges and suchlike; we must not have a perverse incentive that would help Members who have already bought their properties or encourage Members to buy properties rather than rent. We need a fair system that covers the different sorts of accommodation that Members use. The MEC will be mindful of that when we meet this afternoon to work out how we should put into practice the very important cap on accommodation expenses.
	The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) said that we need to reconnect with the public and that we need reform of Parliament. I agree; we must all work together on those wider issues, as well as sorting out the immediate issues.

Stuart Bell: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. I have been a member of the House of Commons Commission for 10 years, nine of them under your stewardship, Mr. Speaker. It was never you who was opposed to reform; the House of Commons showed total incapacity to grasp the nettle of accepting that reform was needed—never more so than on 3 July last year, when proposals that might well have avoided many of today's scandals were rejected by the collective will of the House.
	That, however, is the past. The future is absolutely in independent regulation, and again I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. I also welcome the fact that it extends to the House of Lords. I break with tradition by calling it that rather than "the other place". That might be a welcome change in our own proceedings.
	In the past, the House of Lords has been jealous of its own prerogatives and has avoided integration with this House. I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to be sure that the broad bipartisan support here will be reflected in the House of Lords and that that House will not be an impediment to the kind of changes that we seek.

Harriet Harman: I know that many Members of the House of Lords themselves want to put the situation on a proper footing; indeed, that work was already under way. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to my hon. Friend's work on the MEC. He has been a member of it for many years, and he has done a good job on behalf of the House in explaining to the public at large our strong belief that there should be a constituency link.
	One of the reasons we have second home allowances is that Parliament holds in high regard the importance of Members being rooted in their constituencies. My hon. Friend has been able to explain that on television. He has also explained that we do not want a millionaires' Parliament in which people become MPs only if they can afford it. Every time I switch on the telly and see him rather than me, it is a great relief.

George Young: The right hon. and learned Lady's statement raises important constitutional and ethical issues, which will need to be teased out during the consultation. May I press her on one point? The two driving principles are transparency and independence. To achieve those principles, the case is made to move from self-regulation to independent regulation. It is proposed that the new authority should investigate complaints when a Member is alleged to have breached the code of conduct, but why did the Government stop there? What about the ministerial code of conduct? Is there not an equal need for independence and transparency in investigations of complaints of that code having been breached?

Harriet Harman: The Prime Minister has appointed Sir Philip Mawer to be independent in the reviewing of adherence to the ministerial code, and that is kept constantly under review. The right hon. Gentleman is correct in saying that ministerial standards are also part of the wider discussion that we need to have.
	I do not want to look as if I am trying to ingratiate myself—far from it; it is far too late for that—but I do pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman's work as Chair of the Standards and Privileges Committee. We do not find demonstrations up and down the land chanting, "What do we want? The Standards and Privileges Committee! When do we want it? Now!" None the less, it does important work, and I pay tribute to him and all Members who serve on it.

Kevin Barron: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. May I move on to the Standards and Privileges Committee? It looks as if it will have an adjudication role beyond what will happen with the other authority. Is she completely happy that this adjudicating body is made up of just 10 members of our profession? In what other regulatory body for which we pass legislation would we allow a profession to sit on its own as an adjudication panel over itself? Does she think that some lay members should also join members of our profession on the Standards and Privileges Committee?

Harriet Harman: That is an interesting suggestion, which my right hon. Friend could make as part of the consultation. No doubt he will have to consult the Chair of the Committee as part of that.

Angus Robertson: May I start by saying that you, Mr. Speaker, have always been extremely fair to the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish parties in the House? We thank you for that.
	Ending self-regulation in the House of Commons must be a priority. As I said at the leaders' meeting yesterday, it is right for us to examine proposals for a parliamentary standards authority. Will the Leader of the House confirm today that the commitment to transparency that Mr. Speaker outlined in his statement on expenses yesterday evening will match the standards of the Scottish Parliament?

Harriet Harman: Certainly, I think that even more transparency and openness apply to our system than at the moment obtain in a rather different system of transparency in Scotland. We are all committed to transparency. I should tell the House that the consultation on the parliamentary standards authority will be taken forward by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice.

Dennis Skinner: Does this statement mean that from here on in, Members of Parliament will not take part in votes to increase their allowances or anything else? I fervently believe that this is a better day for Parliament. On one of the days when we had a debate on increasing the allowances by a considerable amount, some of us voted against, and some of us did not take the money either, but I believe that that was a bad day for Parliament, and I want to see the back of those days.
	If there is to be regulation by other bodies, we should have assurances that never again will we have the business of allowances being put to free votes. Incidentally, to get the record straight, I should say that Mr. Speaker never cast a vote. Those free votes allowed people to increase their allowances by a massive amount, and we need to put an end to that. Do we have an assurance that it is all over, and that there will be no more free votes on allowances and pay?

Harriet Harman: All of us have felt that it is not right that we should have to vote on our own pay and allowances. Every time we have to come to the House to debate our own pay and allowances, we have all felt that it is not right. We do not want to have to do that any more; we addressed the issue on pay, and we need to do that on allowances as well. I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to ensure that we cut costs overall. That is also important.
	I should also say that it is important not only that Members are able to be rooted in their constituencies—that important constituency link must be maintained—but that we have offices that help us to do our work professionally in responding to our constituents.
	I receive many thousands of e-mails and phone calls from constituents. My office team do a very important job in keeping me in touch with my constituents and helping them when they have individual problems. Yes, we have to sort this matter out, but we have to do it on a set of principles, bearing in mind the importance of a professional office and a second home, and the importance of not having a millionaires' Parliament. I agree with all the other things that my hon. Friend said as well.

David Heathcoat-Amory: Does the Leader of the House agree that although profound reform is necessary, a sovereign Parliament must think very carefully before setting up an independent external body to set and enforce the rules and to regulate Parliament itself, particularly as it is not at all clear from her statement to whom that external body will be accountable? Does she agree that all of us here, individually and collectively, are responsible to the electors for our actions, and that although we must take external advice, the essential decisions on regulation and rule setting must be taken by ourselves, not subcontracted to others?

Harriet Harman: The question of conduct within this Chamber will remain a matter for the Speaker, and I am sure that people would agree that that is rightly the case. The question of suspension from this House must remain a matter for those of us who are democratically elected, not an unelected body. While it is right to delegate to a statutory authority the questions of setting the code of conduct, setting pay levels, setting allowances, administering the system and investigating any problems, the only thing that should come between us and our doing our duty as Members of Parliament in this House is either our constituents removing us at a general election or the House removing us, with democratically elected Members taking that action.

Tony Wright: Sometimes it takes a big crisis to produce a big response. We have certainly had a big crisis, and I think that now we have had a big response, which is to be welcomed. It is being proposed today that we set up a new body. Can the Leader of the House tell us which bodies will be abolished as the new one is established, and how the members of the new parliamentary standards authority will be appointed?

Harriet Harman: The responsibility of some existing bodies will change, and the responsibility of some others will be subsumed within the new authority. All these issues are a matter for consultation, which, as I said, will be led by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Justice. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that a crisis can evoke a positive response. I pay tribute to him for his work on the Public Administration Committee. Perhaps I owe him an apology, because when we were in the lift I described him as an intellectual, and he rejected that. However, he has thought about these issues long and hard, and now that they are out of the shadows, we need his intellectuality to be brought to bear on them.

William McCrea: May I say, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of my right hon. and hon. Friends, how much we appreciate the kindness, fairness and courtesy that you have shown to us from the Chair?
	I thank the Leader of the House for her comments. Can she clarify whether the body setting Members' allowances will be totally independent as regards Members of this House?

Harriet Harman: Yes, it will. I look forward to the participation of the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends on this issue as well.

Diane Abbott: I welcome the statement made by the Leader of the House. Does she agree that it would be wrong for this House to deflect blame for the current crisis on expenses on to ordinary members of the Fees Office on average salaries, many of whom have served this House with great dedication for many years? There may be questions to ask at the very top of the Fees Office, but the ordinary staff are not responsible for the culture around expenses that has flourished for too long. Just as it is wrong for Members of the House to think that they can hide behind the outgoing Speaker, it would be wrong for them to think that they can hide behind individual, averagely paid members of the Fees Office. The deserved disrepute into which our system of expenses has sunk is the responsibility of each and every one of us as Members of the House.

Harriet Harman: I agree with my hon. Friend that it would be not only fruitless but wrong to seek to apportion blame anywhere. What we need to do is take responsibility and to sort this out. That is the responsibility of all Members of this House, even those who have been absolutely blameless, as I am sure the majority have been, in the way they have made their claims.

Julia Goldsworthy: The Leader of the House spoke of reform of the expenses system as being only one part of trying to restore people's faith in politics and re-engage them in the political process. She referred to having a debate to discuss other opportunities for tackling this issue. The Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill will come to this House after the recess. Will she take advantage of that by ensuring that amendments are tabled to help to re-engage people with politics right from the bottom up?

Harriet Harman: As the hon. Lady will know, there are already provisions in the Bill to do that, but I am sure that as it proceeds through the House there will be further such opportunities.

Clive Efford: What did the Members Estimate Committee take into consideration when it arrived at the figure of £1,250 per month as a cap for mortgage interest? That is not for the whole mortgage; it is just to cover the interest. It strikes me that a person would have to be very rich indeed to be able to claim that maximum amount and arrange their finances to benefit from it to the maximum extent. I think that the public will find that very curious indeed. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that we need to look at that issue, and perhaps at ending a system that allows people to profit from buying and selling houses that have been paid for at public expense?

Harriet Harman: That figure was decided yesterday at the Members Estimate Committee meeting, the Committee on Members' Allowances having looked at the average among different Members so that we could ensure that we lowered the amount, but we did that in the knowledge of the current situation for Members with regard to their obligations.
	There is a particular issue for Members who entered the House in 2005 and had to take out quite big mortgages in order to find accommodation, because the property market was absolutely at its height, and who now find themselves with properties that they cannot put on the market. The intention was to get a situation that reduced the amount that could be spent on the mortgage but also recognised the circumstances of those who have recently come into the House.

Brian Binley: May I pay my own personal tribute to you, Mr. Speaker, for your great personal kindness? I have been most appreciative and wish you the very best for the future.
	I welcome the acknowledgement by the Leader of the House of the difficulties faced by Members from the new intake, and her acknowledgement of the fact that most Members deal with their expenses in an honest and straightforward way—that needs to be said, and I was pleased that she did so. I welcome the recognition of the need for change. I am particularly pleased with the idea that we should be regulated by an outside body, as I have been asking for that during the whole time that I have been in this House. However, some people have been caught out by the regulations announced yesterday, through no fault of their own, and are quite worried about the situation. Will the Leader of the House consider having an appeals process in the short term to allow those people to put their concerns and have them properly adjudged on the facts?

Harriet Harman: The Members Estimate Committee has tried to take into account as many circumstances as we possibly can. However, I assure the hon. Gentleman and other hon. Members of two things. First, we will ensure that the rules are as clear as possible so that people are not unsure about how their circumstances will be changed as a result of the "in principle" decision that was made yesterday. Secondly, this is only an interim arrangement until such time as Sir Christopher Kelly brings forward his proposals. We will try to make the position as clear as possible immediately, and it applies only for a limited period. I hope that that will reassure Members.

Natascha Engel: I totally agree with one of the final points in my right hon. and learned Friend's statement: we have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to do the right thing and ensure that those people who have been disengaged from the whole democratic process are now properly engaged. For many people, the exposure of the allowances has been a sad confirmation of what they have always believed. How can we use the establishment of the standards authority to ensure that the people whom we are supposed to be representing can have their views heard? They have very strong opinions on this matter.

Harriet Harman: This is a question for all Members in all constituencies. My hon. Friend has often raised in the House the particular issue of the disengagement of young people. One important thing that we have done is agree that the Youth Parliament should come and sit in this House. The engagement of the UK Youth Parliament, whose members are themselves elected in all parts of the country, often on a bigger turnout than most of us, has a major role to play.

Bob Spink: I welcome these long-overdue interim measures, but does the Leader of the House plan to make the House authorities the employer of MPs' staff and to limit MPs' second jobs? Then she will have implemented all the recommendations that have been listed in the early-day motions that I have tabled over recent years.

Harriet Harman: When it comes to second jobs, I very much agree with what the hon. Gentleman says. There are two issues to consider about remunerated work done by an MP for which they are paid outside this House and which has nothing to do with the House. One is whether it causes them a conflict of interest, and the second is whether it takes their mind off what their proper job should be, which is to represent their constituents or be in government. I very much agree with him on that matter. Sir Christopher Kelly's committee will be looking at it, and I think that the hon. Gentleman and I will be very much on the same side of the argument. Let us hope that we prevail on that one.
	The House has already voted on asking the Members Estimate Committee to look into the employment of staff, and that will be part of the wider discussion.

Jim Sheridan: I welcome my right hon. and learned Friend's statement. She was right to remind all of us that we have a joint responsibility to restore public confidence in this House, and indeed in politics. Does she agree that in a free and democratic country with a free press, the press also have a responsibility to scrutinise and report accurately what happens in this House, and that those in the press and media who seek to abuse the facilities to indulge in personal and at times racist attacks are acting irresponsibly and not playing their part in restoring confidence in the political system?

Harriet Harman: All of us in this country who are democrats want to be sure of two things: that our parliamentary democracy is as strong and confident as it can be, and that the public recognise that to be the case. I recognise that my hon. Friend has not only been a Member of this House for a considerable time but was involved in representations in the trade union movement before that.

Gregory Campbell: I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your hospitality to me during my time in the House.
	I thank the Leader of the House for her statement, but there are two precise issues that I should like her to elaborate on. First, will the cap on interest payments for accommodation at £1,250 per month also apply to rental costs at the same amount? Secondly, she indicated that the restriction would prevent two Members who are married or living together as partners from claiming more than one second home allowance. Will that apply also to any other two Members who may wish to avail themselves of a property in London to try to ensure that they get additional payments?

Harriet Harman: I think that the intention behind the MEC decision was to distinguish between hon. Members who are married or civil partners and those who are just good friends sharing. That might not always be easy to establish, but what we are talking about is marriage and civil partnerships, not one-night stands.
	May I help the hon. Gentleman by running through the list of what is allowed? You, Mr. Speaker, set forth yesterday in outline what will be allowed for rent, ground rent, service charges, council tax and utility bills, but there will need to be clarification in writing so that hon. Members can be absolutely clear about what their circumstances are. That will be made clear following the MEC meeting this afternoon.

Kerry McCarthy: I entirely endorse the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel) about the need to restore people's confidence and faith in the political system, and in some cases to create that confidence and faith in the first instance. One suggestion is that we should move to real-time month-by-month publication of claims, if not when they are submitted then at least when they are approved. Is that under active consideration?

Harriet Harman: That was one of the things that was agreed last time—that there should be publication month by month of claims that have been made and allowed—but obviously we are looking all the time at how we can improve transparency. These things will not be set in stone, and any other suggestions that hon. Members have will be— [Interruption.] I have just been told by my deputy that it will be reported quarterly, not monthly, and I take it that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, East (Kerry McCarthy) is suggesting that we do it more frequently.

Eleanor Laing: I welcome today's statement. Does the right hon. and learned Lady agree that if it is really our intention to have here a legislature that is broadly reflective of the people whom we seek to represent, it must be made clear and taken into consideration that this is not a gentlemen's club, and that many Members have to balance their parliamentary and constituency duties with their family duties? That applies not only to those of us who are mothers of small children but to those with other family duties.
	It has been very upsetting to read in the press the great idea that we could all live in barracks in London. I ask the House to take into consideration where we will put our children and when we will have time to see them. If we want to have a legislature that really reflects the people, it must reflect families. The financial arrangements must therefore reflect the need for some of us to undertake family duties as well as parliamentary and constituency duties.

Harriet Harman: The hon. Lady has added another principle to the list that I suggest we all adhere to. We must not just be a millionaires' Parliament, and we must respect the constituency link and have good professional offices. Also, this should not just be a Parliament of single people who either have never had families or whose families have grown up. The insight that hon. Members bring of struggling to balance work and family responsibilities, and of caring for older relatives and younger children, helps to shape public policy and helps us understand the lives of people in this country. I would definitely adopt the principle that she has put forward.

Adam Price: It is not just the expenses scandal that has tarnished the reputation of this House in what has been a low, dishonest decade for parliamentary democracy, but the deception perpetrated by the previous Prime Minister in taking us to war on the basis of a pack of lies. That caused almost irreparable damage to people's trust in politics and politicians.
	My question to the right hon. and learned Lady is this: will the standard of honesty form part of the remit of the new parliamentary standards authority, so that members of the public can refer for independent investigation cases in which they believe there is evidence that Members of Parliament, including Ministers, have misled this House and misled the country?

Several hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Speaker: Order. There are only a few hon. Members left, and I have given a lot of leeway, particularly in this matter, but it really should just be a supplementary question that is asked. I ask the remaining Members to do that.

Harriet Harman: We are, of course, answerable to our constituents for the honesty and integrity with which we represent them and go about our work in the House, and to the Chair for not misleading other Members. I think that the regulation of our democracy is ultimately with those who elect us. We are currently considering regulating our pay and our allowances, having codes of conduct and making proposals for their enforcement; that does not cut across the basic fundamental principle of democracy.

Peter Bone: I thank the Leader of the House for her statement and for the leadership that she has shown on this matter. Many hon. Members have made submissions to Sir Christopher Kelly. Will the Government accept his recommendations, whatever they are?

Harriet Harman: At the meeting that the Speaker convened yesterday, the view of the party leaders was that it would be best for the House and all concerned if we could agree with as much as possible of what Sir Christopher Kelly proposes. I think that the Leader of the Opposition said on television that we want to agree with 99.9 per cent. of what Sir Christopher Kelly suggests. That is not to seek to allow for wriggle room. It is in the right spirit and all our interests if we all give evidence to Sir Christopher Kelly—the deadline is 5 June. It is important for hon. Members to give evidence for him to consider. A great deal of responsibility rests on him because we want, cross party, to adopt what he recommends, which will then be put into practice by the new statutory authority. He is like the software, and the hardware will be established by statute in the new authority.

Paul Goodman: Just to round off, Members of Parliament are either elected representatives, who are free to work outside this place, or professional politicians, who are not, and are therefore entirely dependent on the taxpayer as members of a political class, separate and distinct from those who elect them. What is the Government's view?

Harriet Harman: The Prime Minister asked Sir Christopher Kelly to look into that, and he will make his recommendations. In the meantime, the House voted on 30 April for a proper register of all the remuneration from the different additional jobs that Members have. The bottom line is that the public should be able to know where Members of Parliament get additional money from. That was not the case until we made the change. We have therefore already taken steps on transparency.
	I am not sure that I agree with the hon. Gentleman's idea that we are members of the political classes. I do not regard myself as part of the political class. Indeed, many of those in the political class have long thought that I should not be in it. I am many things—I represent my constituency in Camberwell and Peckham; I am a wife, a mother, a former lawyer. We are all different things, and we should not allow ourselves to be pushed into believing that, without second jobs from which we rake in money, we are somehow unworthy members of a political class. So I think my answer to the hon. Gentleman's question, which I cannot remember, is probably no.

Point of Order

Greg Hands: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Once again, the Prime Minister visited my constituency last week—to deliver a speech on crime at Chelsea football club. As has been the case for every visit that he has made to Hammersmith and Fulham in the past four years, he failed to inform me as the constituency Member of Parliament. As ever, his tactic is for one of his junior Ministers to send out a fax saying that the junior Minister will come, but not mentioning the Prime Minister's presence. The rules are clear. How can we enforce the conventions and courtesies of the House—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman is trying to debate the matter. He has made his point—let me look into the problem. The purpose of points of order is not debate. Let me look at the matter; that would be best.

Appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General

[Relevant Document:  The Twelfth Report from the Committee of Public Accounts, HC 256, on  Selection of the new Comptroller and Auditor General . ]

Gordon Brown: I beg to move,
	That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will appoint Amyas Morse to the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General.
	Mr. Morse has agreed that the appointment will be for a non-renewable term of 10 years. I should like to record the Government's thanks to Mr. Tim Burr, who agreed to serve on an interim basis and recently announced his retirement, for his work and expertise.
	As a first stage in implementing the recommendations of the Public Accounts Commission, a new board structure with a majority of independent non-executives, including a non-executive chair, who has already been appointed—Sir Andrew Likierman—is being established.
	The Government will introduce legislation to implement the other recommendations of the Public Accounts Commission on the governance of the National Audit Office.
	Mr. Morse was subject to a pre-appointment hearing before the Public Accounts Committee—the first such hearing that the Committee has held. He will be the first Comptroller and Auditor General who has extensive private as well as public sector experience, which will enable him to bring best practice and discipline to public audit work, and that will benefit the scrutiny of Government.
	I believe that Mr. Morse is eminently qualified for the office of Comptroller and Auditor General, and I commend the motion to the House.

Edward Leigh: It is a pleasure to second the Prime Minister's motion. I personally thank the Prime Minister for his role in the process, which has been completely fair and open.
	The whole point of the job of Comptroller and Auditor General is that it must be above politics. For 150 years, since Mr. Gladstone founded the Public Accounts Committee, it has been a tradition that the Chairman of that Committee is drawn from the Opposition. However, there is also a well-established convention, which is now in statute, that the new Comptroller and Auditor General must be appointed by the Prime Minister—by definition, a member of the Government—and that the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, who is obviously a member of the Opposition, must countersign the motion. Both Government and Opposition therefore have a lock on the appointment. As far as I know, it is the only public sector appointment to which that applies.
	Apart from what I have outlined, the process is new because it is 20 years since we had to appoint a permanent Comptroller and Auditor General. The last time we did it was when Baroness Thatcher, as Prime Minister, appointed Sir John Bourn. The system was old fashioned, with no open advertisement. My predecessor, Robert Sheldon, now Lord Sheldon, conducted interviews on his own, and that was clearly inappropriate. We had to create a modern structure, and we have tried to do that.
	In his opening remarks, the Prime Minister alluded to the modern structure. The first step in the process was to make the National Audit Office completely open, transparent and accountable. We had to preserve the ability of the Comptroller and Auditor to be entirely responsible for his reports—nobody can influence their content. However, it was clearly wrong that he was running the National Audit Office on his own. There had to be a modern board structure and, as the Prime Minister said, the Public Accounts Commission—not the Committee, but the Commission, under the able chairmanship of the Father of the House, who is here today—devised a structure.
	I headed an appointments panel, which appointed the new chairman of the National Audit Office, Sir Andrew Likierman, who has unrivalled experience. He was head of the Government Accountancy Service—apparently known in the trade as "Hot GAS"—and is the dean of the London business school. He was an outstanding candidate and now sits at the apex of this modern, open and transparent National Audit Office. This morning, the Commission met again, and we have given him the go-ahead to appoint further independent board members. The creation of an independent structure was therefore the first part of the process.
	We then had to move to interviewing. Again, I thank the Prime Minister. Of course, he is far too busy running the country to sit for 25 hours, as we had to do, interviewing people, and he therefore delegated Sir Nick Macpherson, the Treasury's permanent secretary, to sit on the interview panel, which I chaired with Tim Burr. I thank Sir Nick Macpherson, with whom I worked closely and who is an outstanding public servant, and Gus O'Donnell, Secretary to the Cabinet, for their help in the process. The process was completely open and transparent, with open advertisements, head-hunters appointed, a long list of outstanding people applying, more than 20 hours of interviews and Sir Andrew Likierman finally getting involved, and we came up with an outstanding candidate, Amyas Morse.
	As the Prime Minister said in his opening remarks, Amyas Morse is, as far as I know, the first ever chartered accounted to be Comptroller and Auditor General. That is an important point in respect of when we talk about professionalising the civil service. He works in the public sector at present, having taken a huge cut in his salary to do so, but before that he rose right to the top of the accountancy profession, as the global managing partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers. It was quite obvious to all of us that he was the outstanding candidate and that is why we on the panel decided to appoint him.
	Amyas Morse's name was then put to the Prime Minister, who, again in the entirely helpful way in which he has conducted the process, approved the nomination within days. He had a veto, but he decided to trust the Committee with our decision. As the Prime Minister said, we then had the first ever confirmation hearing before the Public Accounts Committee; it is something that has never happened before. My colleagues on the Committee will confirm that Amyas Morse performed very well, with firm, well-argued answers, and the Committee clearly had confidence in him.
	The whole process is extremely important. It is not just about appointing a chartered accountant or an accountant of government, and it is far more important than just bean counting or adding up the figures. The National Audit Office is at the centre of the drive to promote economy and efficiency in government. It spends £103 million a year, but it saves the best part of £900 million a year. The National Audit Office is at the centre of the process. The Public Accounts Committee could not work without the National Audit Office, headed by the independent Comptroller and Auditor General.
	Whatever the faults in our Budget process or whatever Parliament's other faults may be, it is not surprising that our process of audit is widely admired and copied throughout the world. It is not surprising that every Commonwealth country has a supreme audit body reporting to a public accounts committee, but even the Czechs have now created a public accounts committee in the past two years. They have perhaps taken to extremes the idea that their chairman—the person who will hold their Government to account—should be a member of the opposition, and have appointed a communist.
	We can be very proud of the work of the Public Accounts Committee. We should thank the National Audit Office and pay tribute to Tim Burr for holding the fort for this interim period. We have appointed a man who must be completely un-influenceable by anybody. That is why we said that he will have one term for 10 years that will not be renewable. The position must also be completely independent. We have ensured his independence through the process that we have undergone. I think that Amyas Morse will be a worthy successor to Tim Burr and I commend his name to the House.

David Gauke: It is symbolic of the significance of the post of Comptroller and Auditor General that the announcement of his appointment should be made in the House by the Prime Minister. However, it would be fair to say that doing so is not one of the more onerous duties of a Prime Minister.
	As we heard, such an announcement has been made only twice before, first in December 1987, when Margaret Thatcher announced the appointment of Sir John Bourn. I note that on that occasion the person responding from the Front Bench on behalf of the official Opposition was the right hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne, East and Wallsend (Mr. Brown), who is here again today. Indeed, if I remember rightly, he was also present on the second occasion, in January 2008, when the Prime Minister announced the interim appointment of Tim Burr.
	Such announcements are happening slightly more frequently now, with somewhat less of a gap between them. It is not unusual in public life for one person to hold a position for a long time and for his successor's time in office to be relatively brief. However, that is no reflection on Tim Burr's performance, because it was always his intention to take the position for an interim period. He has had a distinguished career, working for the National Audit Office for 15 years before becoming the Comptroller and Auditor General, eight of which were spent as deputy. As we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Tim Burr played a useful role in the selection of his successor. I would like to thank him for his contribution over many years.
	When we debated Mr. Burr's appointment in January 2008, much of the discussion centred on the selection process. The consensus in the House was that it was important for Parliament to have a significant role in the appointment to such an important position as that of Comptroller and Auditor General. Some argued for a parliamentary vote. Others, including the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, argued that if that were to happen, there may be a perception of a loss of independence from the Executive. The Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee is an Opposition MP, and if he has a greater role in the appointment, the perception may be one of greater independence. That view has prevailed and the Government have accepted it. I fully acknowledge my hon. Friend's point that both he and the Prime Minister have worked together successfully and smoothly in making this appointment. That helps with the perception of independence.
	I agree with both the Prime Minister and my hon. Friend that an appointment for a single 10-year term is also helpful in maintaining independence and the perception of independence. There can be difficulties and dangers—perhaps more of perception than in reality—when someone has a shorter term and is then reappointed. For example, adverse comment was made about the delays in the reappointment of the Governor of the Bank of England. We think that the current structure has much to commend it.
	In debating the appointment of Mr. Amyas Morse, it is worth highlighting how important the role of the Comptroller and Auditor General has always been and, indeed, how much more important it may become in the years ahead. We are entering a period of public spending restraint. We face record levels of borrowing and it will be necessary to ensure that public money is spent wisely, whoever is in power in the years ahead. Even the Government recognise that there is room for further efficiencies. In a period when the Government's projections are such that there will be real-terms reductions in departmental spending in some areas, the emphasis on value for money is significant.
	Hon. Members perhaps need no reminding of this, but it is worth reiterating the fact that the demand from the public for greater transparency in and scrutiny of public spending is greater than it has ever been before. The public demand to know more. We live in a less deferential society. Developments in technology make it easier for information to be disseminated and obtained. For example, the Conservative party supports the introduction of a website detailing items of significant public spending. We think that more can always be done. However, the National Audit Office, the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Public Accounts Committee all have distinguished records in scrutinising public spending, and they will continue to perform that important role. Indeed, just last night in his statement, Mr. Speaker announced a role for the Comptroller and Auditor General in examining MPs' expenses.
	Let me deal finally with the appointment of Mr. Amyas Morse. We have heard from the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and the Prime Minister what a distinguished career Mr. Morse has had, at PricewaterhouseCoopers and, more recently, at the Ministry of Defence. I know from speaking to my hon. Friend the Chairman how deeply impressed he was by Mr. Morse, and I know that this view was shared by the rest of the panel. Indeed, I think that Mr. Morse impressed the Public Accounts Committee as a whole when giving his evidence to it in February. I have also spoken to others who know Mr. Morse, all of whom speak very highly of him. He has an important task, and we are confident that he will perform his role with great distinction. On behalf of the official Opposition, I wish him well.

Alan Williams: In my role as Chair of the Public Accounts Commission, may I endorse completely everything that has been said about Mr. Morse's suitability for this job? There was an extremely good shortlist, and he was undoubtedly the best candidate. It is not surprising that it was a good list, because this is one of the most important public sector roles. Parliament would be impotent to carry out its financial scrutiny of the Government if it did not have an effective National Audit Office headed by a clearly independent and strong-minded Comptroller and Auditor General. Without the Comptroller and Auditor General, we would be incapable of monitoring the hundreds of billions of pounds of expenditure and income. He does not simply audit; he checks for value for money, probity and accuracy.
	I should like to put a different hat on to describe another role of the Comptroller and Auditor General. In my role as Chair of the Liaison Committee, I have been very grateful to the previous Comptrollers and Auditors General, Sir John Bourn and Tim Burr, for all the work they have done with the Committees outside the Public Accounts Committee. For many years, the other Committees have justifiably been envious of the incredible support that the PAC receives from the National Audit Office. Sir John must be given credit for his decision to start using the NAO's expertise to support the other Select Committees, through the use of secondees and briefings. At the post-appointment hearing, I spoke to Sir Andrew Likierman, the new chair of the NAO, which is a new post. I was particularly delighted when he and Mr. Morse reiterated their commitment to expand the role of supporting the Select Committees. That can only be good news for the Committees.
	I, too, would like to thank Tim Burr. He stood in at a difficult time, and he indicated that he had no intention of applying for the post himself. I know that the Chair of the PAC will agree that he has done an excellent job in running the National Audit Office. More than that, however, he has started to implement the restructuring of the NAO and to adapt it to the best modern standards of corporate government, as recommended by the Tiner report. We owe him a lot for that.
	I first started to serve on the PAC in 1990, when I left the Front Bench. At that stage, the NAO was saving the taxpayer five times its annual running costs. That gradually increased, under pressure from the Commission and the Committee, to seven, eight and then nine times the running costs. Tim Burr gave us a pleasant surprise at the last meeting of the Commission, when he told us that the NAO is now recovering 10 times its cost to the taxpayer. That works out at more than £1 billion every 18 months, which is a remarkable achievement. Tim has done a great job. He has been a pleasure to work with, and I wish him well in whatever he decides to do in the future.

Jeremy Browne: It is indicative of the significance of the position of Comptroller and Auditor General that the Prime Minister himself moved the motion on the appointment of Mr. Morse. I congratulate the Prime Minister on the nerveless performance that he gave a few minutes ago.
	The post of Comptroller and Auditor General is a highly significant one, particularly at this time, when the Government have a public sector deficit of £175 billion this year, falling to £173 billion next year—according to their projections. The deficit represents more than 10 per cent. of gross domestic product, so it is essential that we achieve value for money in public spending. That is clearly a task that Mr. Morse is well equipped to contribute to.
	A number of concerns have been expressed, not about Mr. Morse's individual qualifications and suitability but about the role more generally. There is a potential for conflict between the positions of the chairman, Sir Andrew Likierman, and of Mr. Morse. I am talking not about them as individuals but about the two roles, which have the potential to overlap. There are issues about the usefulness of the hearing processes, when they do not contribute directly to a recommendation or otherwise on the suitability of an applicant. There is also an issue about the balance between finding value for money and the financial audit work undertaken by the NAO. Mr. Morse will of course have some significant issues in his in-tray, not least the vexed question of whether private finance initiatives will contribute to the overall public debt of the country.

Richard Bacon: If the hon. Gentleman had taken the trouble to read the PAC report, he would have seen that the hearing process contributed directly to the satisfaction expressed by the Committee that Mr. Morse was a suitable person to appoint.

Jeremy Browne: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. Perhaps I did not word my comment as neatly as I might have done, but my understanding is that the Committee was not able to ratify the appointment, and that it was able only to guide it. That might be suitable, however; perhaps everyone on the Committee feels that that level of authority is appropriate.

Edward Leigh: This is a very important point. The reason we did it this way is that the Committee, like every other Committee in the House, has a Labour majority. If it had seconded the motion of the Prime Minister, we would have had a Labour Prime Minister proposing the new Comptroller and Auditor General and a Labour-dominated Committee seconding his appointment. The whole point, as I outlined earlier, is that both the Opposition and the Government have a lock on this process.

Jeremy Browne: I am delighted that Mr. Morse's appointment finds favour with all parts of the House. His appointment is certainly supported by my party. I have not, to my recollection, ever met him, but his CV is certainly impressive and hours of hearings have been undertaken to gauge his suitability. I can only conclude that he must indeed be a person who can undertake this onerous task in a distinguished manner.
	I shall conclude with a quote from the Committee's report—which I have indeed read—that makes this point forcefully. It states:
	"As a Committee, we have no role in the statutory process of selection and appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General. Nonetheless we believe that our views should carry weight in the debate on the Prime Minister's motion praying the Queen to appoint Amyas Morse, since we have collectively some 65 years of experience on the Committee and thus of working with the Comptroller and Auditor General and the National Audit Office. We are satisfied that Amyas Morse is highly suitable for the post of Comptroller and Auditor General."
	On that basis, I hope that the appointment will find favour among all Members.

Richard Bacon: I am pleased to take part in the debate to confirm the appointment of Mr. Morse as Comptroller and Auditor General. Having seen him in the hearing, I have no doubt at all about his suitability. His experience of running a large international accountancy practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers, combined with his experience as commercial director of the Ministry of Defence, renders him highly suitable for this very difficult job.
	In appointing Mr. Morse as Comptroller and Auditor General, the Government are going to have to fix several things. It is a pleasure to see a number of former members of the Public Accounts Committee now sitting on the Treasury Bench and taking part in the debate. I saw the hon. Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett) earlier. When he was a member of the Committee, I always used to feel that he and I were hunting together as a pack when we were probing the civil servants before us. Unfortunately, he is now engaged on other responsibilities—bunker maintenance might be the best description for them. There are others sitting on the Treasury Bench who have had recent PAC experience. I enjoyed their incisive contributions through the years when they were members.
	There are aspects of the Comptroller and Auditor General's access to the information he needs that will have to be fixed. The National Audit Act 1983 states that the Comptroller and Auditor General should have complete discretion in the exercise of his functions. One might assume that this is completely true, but in fact it is not true at all, as there are three obvious exceptions.
	The first is the Financial Services Authority, to which the Comptroller and Auditor General does not have access. That means that he cannot carry out an audit of the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of the FSA in the way he can with, say, the Ministry of Defence or the Department of Health. I personally believe that that has had significant consequences—for example, in respect of Northern Rock. When it got into huge difficulties, it was discovered to be subject to a regulatory system under which the different players did not know what they were doing. It became very obvious in the autumn of 2007, as seen in the National Audit Office report based on evidence from the Comptroller Auditor General, that the three parts of the regulatory system did not know what the others were doing. That was the result of a lack of scrutiny of the FSA. The Comptroller and Auditor General would have carried it out, I believe, if he had had the right of access to do so—but he did not, so when it was done, it was done by the Treasury.
	I am afraid that only once over a period of seven or eight years did the Treasury ask the NAO to look at the activities of the FSA. In that regard, it failed in its functions. I do not blame the Exchequer Secretary, who was a very incisive member of our Committee when she was on it. Functionally, however, the Treasury has failed, and Sir Nicholas Macpherson has more or less admitted that point and agreed to go back and look over the matter.
	Secondly—

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I think the hon. Gentleman is ranging rather wide of the measure before the House, which is specifically about an appointment.

Richard Bacon: Indeed, Mr. Deputy Speaker, so I shall try to confine my remarks to the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General. In talking about that appointment, I hope it is in order to discuss the functions of the Comptroller and Auditor General once he is appointed and whether or not he is able to exercise them.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Perhaps—narrowly and briefly.

Richard Bacon: I will be very narrow and very brief, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	My second point concerns the BBC, to which the Comptroller and Auditor General does not have access either. That has an impact on the effectiveness, efficiency and economy of the BBC and on the extent to which it is scrutinised. When Dame Ellen MacArthur sailed around the world, 64 television producers turned up in Falmouth to cover it. I am not sure that that would have happened if they had known that they were going to be subject to public audit in the way that most Government Departments are. That has nothing to do with editorial control.
	The third point, and it is the most serious of all, concerns this House. I hope that you will agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that it is directly relevant to this debate. What better time to appoint the nation's chief auditor than after what has happened over the last couple of weeks? I can think of no more important appointment for us to make. According to statute, the Comptroller and Auditor General has all the authority over the National Audit Office. As the Government well know, that is why we are soon going to see changes. As I say, the Comptroller and Auditor General has all the authority under statute and the NAO is organised under his control into value-for-money divisions and financial audit divisions.

Edward Leigh: Will my hon. Friend allow me?

Richard Bacon: I would rather keep going, if I may, as Mr. Deputy Speaker has asked me to be brief.
	As it is organised, the Defence, Health or Transport audit will have two sub-branches: financial and value for money. Within the NAO, there is also a section called "Justice and Parliament"—and I had always assumed that the Justice and Parliament section could audit the House of Commons administration in exactly the same way as the Health audit section can audit the Department of Health or as the Culture, Media and Sport section or the Transport section can audit those Government Departments. It turns out, however, not to be the case.
	I discussed this issue with an assistant Comptroller and Auditor General last week. Previously, I had always thought that the auditors could go in and examine the House of Commons administration and do all the audit they needed to perform to satisfy themselves in exactly the same way as for Departments. It turns out, however, that for all these years, all they have been able to do is to compare the claims made by Members with the amounts paid and check that the two are the same—that is all they can do. When I asked one of the assistant auditors general why it was not possible to do more, the reply was, "That is all we could get."
	I hope that you will agree, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that what I am saying now is directly relevant to this debate and to the appointment of the Comptroller and Auditor General. The truth is that that is not good enough. It is not the fault of the Comptroller and Auditor General that it is not good enough, as it is the responsibility of the Government and this House. When the Government fix the problem, they have to ensure that the new Comptroller and Auditor General we are appointing—I think he is the right person for the job—has all the access he needs to do the job properly.

Angela Eagle: It is a great pleasure to conclude the debate. I echo the tributes of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and of right hon. and hon. Members on all sides of the House to the outgoing Comptroller and Auditor General, Tim Burr. He has been a public servant for more than 40 years, beginning his career in the Treasury. In particular, he was the Treasury Officer of Accounts between 1993 and 1994 before moving to the National Audit Office to become a member of its management board. In 2000, he became deputy Comptroller and Auditor General, before assuming the office of Comptroller and Auditor General, on an interim basis, on 1 February last year. I am glad that all Members—and particularly my right hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, West (Mr. Williams), who although not the current Chairman is the most experienced member of the Public Accounts Committee and provided great service in that role over many years—have paid full tribute to Mr. Burr. The Government were grateful that Mr. Burr agreed to take on the role of Comptroller and Auditor General on a temporary basis. We know that he has fulfilled that role with integrity and been a steadying hand on the tiller.
	The hon. Member for Taunton (Mr. Browne) suggested that there might be some disagreement over the roles of the Chairman of the National Audit Office and the Comptroller and Auditor General. Actually, all parties are agreed on what we have done in making this appointment today, and the approach was agreed by the National Audit Office.

Edward Leigh: rose—

Angela Eagle: I gladly give way to the hon. Gentleman, who has been very much involved in this matter.

Edward Leigh: This is a very important point, which was carefully considered by the both the Commission and the Committee. There will be no disagreement because Sir Andrew Likierman will concern himself only with the corporate governance of the NAO. The CAG will have the absolute, independent, full and individual right to propose what he studies and to issue his results to the PAC. The PAC will never consider policy in itself, but only its effectiveness. I have chaired more than 450 meetings of the PAC, at which we have never had even one vote. Contrary to what was said earlier, the system does work and does provide independence for the CAG.

Angela Eagle: I am a former member of the Public Accounts Committee and I have had the privilege of occasionally sitting in on some hearings—not all 450—from the Government side. I can certainly confirm that when I was a fully fledged and regularly attending member under the chairmanship of the hon. Gentleman, we did not have any votes. I believe that the PAC continues to do a vital job, so I welcome the hon. Gentleman's clarification in response to some of the doubts expressed by the hon. Member for Taunton.
	The Government are committed to bringing forward legislation to implement the recommendations of the Public Accounts Commission on NAO corporate governance and will do so as soon as the legislative timetable allows.
	I want to welcome the appointment of Mr. Morse as Comptroller and Auditor General. As the Prime Minister said, Mr. Morse has had a distinguished career in the private sector and is currently the Ministry of Defence's commercial director. His appointment brings a number of "firsts". He will be the first Comptroller and Auditor General to have private sector experience, which will prove invaluable to the National Audit Office. He will be the first chartered accountant, the first to be appointed through open competition and the first to be subject to a pre-appointment hearing. He is also the first to agree to be appointed for a limited term.

Jacqui Lait: I have been listening with great attention to the Minister's speech. She endorsed the recommendation, with which I agreed, that the new Comptroller and Auditor General should be both a chartered accountant and from private practice. Given that audit background in private practice, will the Government accept any of the Comptroller and Auditor General's recommendations? I am thinking of, for instance, the recommendation presented jointly by the Audit Commission and the National Audit Office that the private finance initiative should go on the Government's balance sheet.

Angela Eagle: That is a rather wider question than the question of the appointment hearing, but, as the hon. Lady knows, changes to accounting mechanisms are being considered by the professional bodies that have a bearing on this matter. I look forward to discussing it with her during one of our regular Public Accounts Committee debates, when she may wish to make her points again.
	I suggest that Members read the transcript of Mr. Morse's pre-appointment hearing before the Public Accounts Committee. It provides an insight into his background and knowledge, as well as how he will work with the new non-executive chairman, Sir Andrew Likierman.
	A substantial amount of work will be involved in bringing the corporate governance of the National Audit Office into the 21st century, and, as we have already heard today, similar work is being done in parallel in other institutions. I am sure that Mr. Morse is relishing the opportunity to lead the National Audit Office through the next decade of change. The NAO and the PAC do a vital job in securing value for money for every penny of public expenditure and explaining to us what we can do in the event of failure. I know that Mr. Morse will be ably supported by Sir Andrew Likierman, and I commend the motion to the House.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Resolved,
	That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that Her Majesty will appoint Amyas Morse to the Office of Comptroller and Auditor General.

Planning: National Policy Statements

[Relevant Document:  The  Fourth Special  Report from the  Liaison  Committee , Session 2007-08, on Planning Bill: Parliamentary Scrutiny of National Policy Statements, HC 1109]

Iain Wright: I beg to move,
	That the following new Standing Order and amendments to the Standing Orders be made—
	 A. New Standing Order: Planning: national policy statements
	(1) Whenever a proposal for a national policy statement is laid before this House under section 9(2) of the Planning Act 2008 ('the Act'), the Liaison Committee shall report either—
	(a) that it has designated a select committee appointed under Standing Order No. 152, or
	(b) that it recommends the appointment of a National Policy Statement Committee to consider the proposal.
	(2) A National Policy Statement Committee—
	(a) shall be composed of not fewer than seven nor more than fourteen members, all of whom shall be, at the time of nomination, members of one 15 or more of the following select committees—
	Communities and Local Government
	Energy and Climate Change
	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	Transport
	Welsh Affairs;
	(b) shall have power—
	(i) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place within the UK; and
	(ii) to appoint specialist advisers either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee's order of reference; and
	(c) may report from time to time and shall cease to exist either—
	(i) if it has reported on the proposal before the designated date, when the relevant national policy statement or amended national policy statement has been laid under section 5(9) or section 6(9) of the Act; or
	(ii) if it has not reported on the proposal before the designated date, on the designated date;
	(3) A committee designated or appointed to consider a proposal for a national policy statement shall have power, in the course of its proceedings under this order, to invite Members of the House who are not members of the committee to attend, and, at the discretion of the chairman, take part in, its proceedings, but such Members may not move any motion or amendment to any motion or draft report, nor vote nor be counted in the quorum of the committee;
	(4) If a committee designated or appointed to consider a proposal for a national policy statement has not reported on the proposal before the designated date, then the chairman of the committee shall report that the committee makes no recommendation with regard to the proposal.
	(5) For the purposes of this Order, the designated date in relation to any proposal for a national policy statement is the thirty-ninth day before the expiry of the relevant period defined under section 9(6) of the Act.
	 B. Amendments to Standing Orders
	That Standing Order No. 121 (Nomination of select committees) be amended, by inserting after '(b)' in line 17—
	'(i) in the case of a motion to agree with a report from the Liaison Committee to appoint and nominate Members to a National Policy Statement Committee under Standing Order (Planning: National Policy Statements) the motion is made on behalf of the Liaison Committee by the chairman or another member of the committee; or
	(ii) in other cases';
	That Standing Order No. 145 (Liaison Committee) be amended by leaving out paragraphs (6), (7) and (8) and inserting the following paragraphs—
	(6) The committee shall have power to appoint two sub-committees, one of which shall be a National Policy Statements sub-committee.
	(7) A National Policy Statements sub-committee—
	(a) shall be composed of—
	(i) those members of the committee who are members of the Communities and Local Government, Energy and Climate Change, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Transport and Welsh Affairs Committees; and
	(ii) up to two other members of the committee, one of whom shall be appointed chairman of the sub-committee;
	(b) shall report to the committee on the use of the committee's powers under paragraph (1) of Standing Order (Planning: National Policy Statements); and
	(c) may report to the committee on matters relating to national policy statements under the Planning Act 2008.
	(8) Each sub-committee shall have—
	(a) a quorum of three; and
	(b) power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to report to the committee from time to time.
	(9) The committee shall have power to report from time to time the minutes of evidence taken before any sub-committee.
	(10) The quorum of the committee shall be as provided in Standing Order No. 124 (Quorum of select committees), save that for consideration of a report from a National Policy Statements sub-committee under sub-paragraph (7)(b) the quorum shall be three.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I must tell the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell).

Iain Wright: The changes in the planning regime that resulted from the Planning Act 2008—in terms of the establishment of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, the role and extent of national policy statements and the ability of the public to make their views known on the proposals—were scrutinised extremely closely during debate on the Bill here and in the other place.
	This is neither the place nor the occasion to discuss the merits or otherwise of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, or whether the country should have a new generation of nuclear power stations or an increase in airport capacity. I am sure, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you would rule us out of order if we strayed into that territory. Instead, we shall be discussing a motion that is concerned with the process by which Parliament will be involved in scrutiny of the new planning framework.

Joan Walley: I do not intend to go down the avenue that the Minister just mentioned, but may I point out to him that, in the context of the proposed scrutiny process, there are serious concerns about sustainable development? Can he reassure me that the Sustainable Development Commission will have an input and that corresponding opportunities will be provided for scrutiny by the Environmental Audit Committee, so that we can be certain that whatever the outcome of the establishment of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, sustainable development has been properly taken into account?

Iain Wright: That is an important question. As was made clear during the passage of the Planning Bill and is made clear in the Act, sustainability must be at the heart of any national policy statement. I shall say more about parliamentary scrutiny shortly. I do not wish to mislead the House, but I seem to recall that the Sustainable Development Commission is one of the statutory consultees and will therefore have the opportunity to play a role in regard to national policy statements.

Joan Walley: The Minister is being very generous in giving way, and I am grateful to him. Can he also reassure me that the commission will have regard to the future price of carbon when making planning infrastructure decisions?

Iain Wright: As I am sure my hon. Friend will acknowledge, that will depend on the nature of the national policy statement involved. It may well be that the price of carbon is not particularly relevant. When considering this matter, the House has been clear about the need for a flexible approach in that regard.
	The Planning Act, particularly section 9, provides for parliamentary scrutiny of a proposed national policy statement before it can be designated. Timing, in the general sense, is very important. The Government envisage that the Infrastructure Planning Commission will be established and able to start giving advice to potential applicants this autumn, and will be ready to begin receiving applications from the first half of 2010. We need to put the right procedures in place now, so that they are ready for the first statements, which are scheduled for publication for consultation and laying before Parliament later this year. It is important for parliamentary scrutiny of proposals for NPSs to be efficient and timely. Any delay, or ineffective arrangements, will pose the risk of disruption to a demanding timetable of planning reform for major infrastructure.
	To ensure that the process of parliamentary scrutiny is effective and efficient, the Minister for Local Government and the Leader of the House began discussions with the Chairmen of the relevant Select Committees when the Planning Bill was going through the House. Discussions have been followed by further discussions between the Deputy Leader of the House—who I am pleased to see is present—and the Chairmen of Select Committees in recent weeks. The Liaison Committee also considered this matter in October last year, and I have found its report incisive and illuminating.
	I pay tribute to the hard work undertaken by my colleagues and others, which has strengthened the proposed process. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members who have made constructive and positive comments, designed to ensure that Parliament scrutinises national policy statements properly and effectively.
	When the Planning Bill was first introduced, the Government suggested the establishment of a specific Select Committee to consider national policy statements, whose members might be drawn from the membership of relevant departmental Committees. However, it was made clear during the passage of the Bill that the wish of the House was that it should be for the House itself to decide what procedures were appropriate for each specific NPS. We recognise that that flexibility is vital.
	As I said a moment ago, the Liaison Committee also directly considered the matter of parliamentary scrutiny of NPSs, and provided helpful and reasonable suggestions on how the process could operate and be improved. The Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey)—who I am pleased to see is also present—feared that the system as then suggested would exclude members of her Committee with responsibility for, and expertise in, matters of planning policy and local government. As one who appeared before the Committee this week to discuss planning policy statements—and I still bear the scars on my back from previous interrogations by it—I can personally vouch for my hon. Friend's wise words. Moreover, the Chairmen of the departmental Select Committees directly concerned perceived the risk that a system in which ad hoc committees were drawn from existing Select Committees would disrupt those Committees' work.
	Together with the Chairs of the Select Committees, we developed the process that is proposed in the motion. Parliamentary examination of a national policy statement would take place through one of two routes: designation of a relevant departmental Select Committee to undertake the work, or the appointment of a national policy statement Select Committee. The decision on which option to take would be a matter not for the Government but for the Select Committees, via the Liaison Committee. Part A of the motion creates a new Standing Order setting out the governance and administrative arrangements for a new national policy statement Select Committee, including the number of members, what constitutes a quorum, the Committee's powers to take evidence and its ability to appoint specialist advisers.
	It may be helpful if I briefly describe what I expect scrutiny of a national policy statement to entail. As I have implied, the precise details would be a matter for the Liaison Committee and the relevant Select Committee, but we envisage a process along the following lines. The relevant Secretary of State would lay the draft NPS, or draft amendment of an NPS, before Parliament and publish it for public consultation. At the same time, the Secretary of State would specify what is known as the "relevant period" during which consideration of the proposal would take place. We have agreed that this would need to be sufficient to encompass the period of public consultation plus additional time to allow for Committees of either House to report and for debates in this House and the other place to take place if required.

Joan Walley: rose—

Iain Wright: Before I give way to my hon. Friend, let me stress that this is an extremely important point, on which I wish to elaborate.

Joan Walley: I just want to double-check that at that stage in the process the Sustainable Development Commission will be able to give its view, and that that will then be drawn to the attention of the Select Committees or Members looking into the matter.

Iain Wright: If I can move on to describe more of this process, I might be able to answer my hon. Friend's question.
	Chairs of Select Committees and the House in general will wish to be reassured that a Secretary of State will not rush through an NPS via a truncated relevant period, and I will in a moment set out how that will not be allowed to be the case. A draft NPS will be screened by the Chairs of the relevant Select Committees and the Liaison Committee. Under this process, it will be decided which of the two routes for scrutiny to take: a relevant Select Committee or the bespoke national policy statement Select Committee. This body will then meet to agree its call for evidence, which will run in parallel with public consultation. The motion before us makes it clear that the Select Committee may invite individuals and organisations to appear before it to give oral evidence; I think that that point will reassure my hon. Friend that the SDC will, where relevant, be able to give evidence and appear before the relevant Select Committee. I hope I have reassured her on that point.

Joan Walley: rose—

Iain Wright: If I have not reassured her, however, I shall give way again.

Joan Walley: I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. The issue is to do with the word "may". I would like the SDC to have the status of a statutory consultee in respect of the views that are sought by different Committees.

Iain Wright: I have two points to make in response to that. First, it is my recollection that, in terms of all national policy statements, the SDC is a statutory consultee; I will write to my hon. Friend if that is incorrect. Secondly, I hope I am making it clear that it is not for the Government to decide which witnesses are to be provided in the consideration of any particular NPS. The relevant Select Committee, in conjunction with the Liaison Committee, would decide what evidence needed to be provided. It is, of course, open to the SDC to provide, where relevant, written evidence to a particular Select Committee. Therefore, I think there are checks and balances to allow issues and queries with regard to sustainability to be advanced.

Paul Truswell: This process will obviously be kick-started by a significant number and range of national policy statements. Are the Minister and Select Committee Chairs confident that they have the logistical capacity to be able to deal with that initial major amount of work?

Iain Wright: We anticipate there being about a dozen national policy statements. My hon. Friend raises an important point, and one of our key pledges is that sufficient discussion will take place between the Government, the relevant Secretaries of State, the Liaison Committee and the Select Committees to make sure that they are not inundated with work and the necessary logistics and administrative arrangements are provided. We have pledged that additional support will be given to relevant Select Committees to ensure that they can properly scrutinise the NPS process.

Jacqui Lait: I wish to raise a point of technical detail. Will there be sufficient time for groups who are, perhaps, not professional lobby groups but who are affected by these policy statements to be able to get their evidence together and into not only the public consultation, but the Select Committee, and then for the Select Committee to be able to interview them if there is substantive evidence to take? Will there be a Government guarantee—or will the relevant Select Committee be able to guarantee—that there will be sufficient time for everyone to be able to give clear evidence?

Iain Wright: I may be wrong, but I seem to recall that the hon. Lady served on the Planning Bill Committee.

Jacqui Lait: indicated assent.

Iain Wright: The hon. Lady indicates that she served on the Committee and she raises the important point that timing is absolutely essential. We have said both throughout the passage of the Bill and now that it has been enacted that we need a national debate on what infrastructure is necessary for this country. Part of that debate is a public consultation, for which there is the statutory 12-week period. Alongside that, it is important that, in parallel, we have rigorous parliamentary scrutiny, and if the hon. Lady will allow me to move on, I will talk about the overhanging period after the public consultation in which the relevant Select Committee can determine the points she raised.

David Drew: The Minister's remarks are very interesting. The problem here is that these national policy statements will be overarching and interrelated, and because of the nature of Member involvement they will be interested in a number of different national policy statements at the same time. How will we manage that, unless we allow national policy statement proceedings to last for long periods of time? This point also applies to the various non-governmental organisations that will be interested. They will want to give evidence on a range of national policy statements at the same time. How does the Minister envisage that that will work?

Iain Wright: I anticipate that the relevant Select Committee would look at the logistics and determine which organisations and individuals to call to give evidence. There should be a coherent strategy to allow that consultation and debate to take place. Let me move on, as what I wish to say next might also help provide clarity on these points.
	The Committee may also decide to take evidence in specific locations outside Parliament. It is entirely possible, for example, that a location-specific NPS—the nuclear energy NPS, perhaps, on which I should declare an interest as there is a nuclear power station in my constituency—could identify suitable, or potentially suitable, locations for a piece of infrastructure, and the Select Committee might consider it appropriate to visit some of them.
	The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) expressed concern about the timing. I want to reassure her and the House on that, and the motion addresses this issue. We have given an undertaking that Committees will have at least four to six weeks after the end of the three-month public consultation period to complete their work. This is an important and valuable part of the parliamentary scrutiny process. It means that the interval between the proposal being laid and the Committee producing its report will not be less than four months and will usually be longer than that. In practice, the relevant period will therefore usually be about six months, but my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State who will be laying the proposals are fully aware of the need to consult Select Committees about the timing of the scrutiny process at an early stage. I hope that this explanation reassures the House that the process will be timely and focused, but certainly not rushed.
	Under the terms of the motion, the Select Committee would publish its report no later than 40 days before the end of the relevant period, which would allow time for a debate in either or both Chambers if the Select Committee recommends one. The Secretary of State would revise the draft NPS in the light of the public consultation, the Select Committee's report and any resolutions of either House, and then designate the NPS.

Jacqui Lait: Are the 40 days in addition to the four to six weeks that the Select Committee will have, or is the 40 days included in that four to six weeks? I ask that as I can envisage potential difficulties in terms of timing.

Iain Wright: I apologise to the hon. Lady for not making myself clear. As I said at the start, when a draft national policy statement is published, the relevant Secretary of State will determine the relevant period. That relevant period is the time scale within which this whole process will take place. The reason for the point about the report coming out 40 days before the end of that relevant period is to ensure that there could be a debate in this House or the other place if the Select Committee that scrutinised that NPS thought that that would be relevant, appropriate and worth while. That is an important point.
	As I said, there is a balance to be struck in respect of ensuring that we have policy statements in place for our national infrastructure projects that are timely, relevant, focused and thorough, and incorporating both public consultation and, crucially, very rigorous parliamentary scrutiny of the process.

Jacqui Lait: rose—

Iain Wright: I can see that I have not reassured the hon. Lady, so I shall give way again.

Jacqui Lait: This is not so much about reassurance, but arithmetic. There is to be 12 weeks for public consultation, plus four to six weeks for the Select Committee to take evidence plus 40 days in which the Select Committee can make its decision and produce a report to the House and the House can debate it. So 12 weeks plus six weeks plus seven weeks—42 days—means that we seem to be talking about 25 weeks maximum between the Secretary of State laying a national policy statement and a parliamentary debate being held? Is that the total length of time?

Iain Wright: I seem to recall that in an earlier answer to an intervention, I said that I thought the relevant period would, in general—in the real world—be about six months. I am only a chartered accountant, so I take the hon. Lady's arithmetic for granted, but I think that is right.

Bob Neill: There is a job going.

Iain Wright: Given that the previous debate was about the Comptroller and Auditor General, I understand that point.
	The six-month period strikes the balance to ensure that we have public consultation and debate and, crucially for this House, that there is appropriate parliamentary scrutiny of the entire process.

Daniel Rogerson: Did the Minister not feel it appropriate, in consultation with ministerial colleagues and with Chairs of the Select Committee, through the Liaison Committee, to specify a minimum time frame for this process? I can see that the 40-day period is necessary to ensure that anything coming from the Select Committee can be adequately considered by the House, but did the Minister not consider a minimum period for the whole process? An individual Secretary of State will have to consider what the relevant period should be, but will there be a minimum in respect of that decision?

Iain Wright: No, I think that there needs to be discussion between the relevant Secretary of State, the relevant departmental Select Committees and the Liaison Committee. The point that I have been trying to make to the House is that this arrangement has to be as flexible as possible. We want to give appropriate time for Parliament to scrutinise these incredibly important planning statements. It is incredibly important that as we consider the future infrastructure of this country, in order to allow us to compete in the modern world, we have a public debate on, and parliamentary scrutiny of, what is necessary. We are trying to provide flexibility in the system, and the discussions that my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and others have had with relevant Select Committee Chairs indicate that this flexibility has been provided and that the whole House can be reassured on that.

Paul Truswell: A few minutes ago, my hon. Friend said that the relevant Minister would review the draft national policy statement in the light of public consultation and the views of the Select Committee. If I recall things correctly, he used the words "resolutions of this House." Could he be a bit more specific about what he might mean by that? Within what parameters will we be working, in terms of the resolutions of this House, that will influence the final NPS?

Iain Wright: I am not trying to duck the issue, but I think it is the responsibility of the relevant Select Committee that has examined the evidence, produced the report and determined what the nature of the debate in this House, or perhaps even in the other place, needs to be. The Government are trying to be as flexible as possible in respecting the wishes of Parliament in its scrutiny of this process. Flexibility is key, and allowing Members of this House the opportunity to debate what has been found by the Select Committee investigation is important.

Bob Neill: The Minister was referring to the various consultations that have been undertaken with Select Committees and other matters. He may recall that during the debate in Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend, East (James Duddridge) suggested to the Minister for Local Government that it would be sensible to have a meeting or discussions with representatives of the Quadripartite Committee, in order to consider some of the issues and difficulties that may have arisen in trying to pull together Joint Committees from various other bodies. Was that followed up? Did such discussions take place?

Iain Wright: To the extent that I am aware, I am not entirely certain that such discussions did take place. As I said, I think that discussions took place between the Liaison Committee, the relevant departmental Select Committees and the Deputy Leader of the House.

Phyllis Starkey: This might be of help. It is true that there were not direct consultations, but in the discussions that took place between the Deputy Leader of the House and the Chairs of the Select Committees the example—both positive and negative—of the Quadripartite Committee, was heavily drawn on. The Clerks of the Committees, who were advising us, were well aware of the operation of that Committee.

Iain Wright: I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government for that clarification of the position.
	Part B of the motion makes a number of consequential changes. It allows the Liaison Committee to set up a new sub-Committee to consider how to scrutinise national policy statements and it provides for a motion from the Liaison Committee to nominate an NPS committee to be treated in the same way as a motion from the Committee of Selection nominating Members to any other Committee.
	I hope that the House will agree that the motion sets out significant and innovative arrangements for parliamentary scrutiny, which will ensure that this House—and the other place, if necessary—has a strong say, and is able to have a big influence on national policy statements. I commend the motion to the House.

Bob Neill: I am grateful to the Minister for taking the time to detail the substance of the motion. He is right to say that these are significant and innovative matters. The test, of course, is whether they are adequate and achieve the overall objective—I am sorry to say that that is where he and I are likely to part company.
	I promise that I shall not do a re-run of the lengthy scrutiny—the Minister was right about that—in Committee of what became the Planning Act 2008. However, it is sensible to start from the proposition that we are dealing, as he said, with significant infrastructure projects of the highest degree. Something of national significance is almost in the definition "national policy statement". Against that background, it is hugely important that if such projects are to go ahead, there should, as he says, be a swift and effective system to consider them. On that much we have common ground, which is why the Conservatives are sympathetic towards some aspects of these measures. National policy statements have a real role to play as part of this regime.
	The Minister will know that we part company from him on the desirability of the Infrastructure Planning Commission, in its current form, being the vehicle to deal with this issue. Our reason for doing so is linked to our concern about the proposals in the motion, which is that precisely because of the significance of these projects, it is all the more important that there should be the maximum democratic accountability in the decision-making process and the maximum legitimacy if communities and other groups are being asked to make a sacrifice in the national interest.
	If that is to happen, as it sometimes does in the planning process, it is right and proper that people feel they have had a fair crack of the whip in putting their case before a decision is taken. If the matter is really of national significance, it is right that the ultimate decision should be taken in the Chamber of the House.
	There is, of course, merit in Select Committees looking at detailed matters, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) for referring to the discussions with the Quadripartite Committee, because that is one of the issues raised to which I shall return. Although I accept that there has been a degree of constructive discussion and movement from the Government's original proposals, none of the proposals in the motion meets our basic issue of principle: proposals of this kind should ultimately be signed off in a substantive vote following a debate on the Floor of this House. The mechanism by which we achieve that might vary, be it the report of a Joint Committee or a special national policy committee—that matters not. These proposals lack the means whereby every Member can participate in a debate and register their vote. That is the most important issue.

John Howell: Does my hon. Friend agree that since legislation was passed in 2004 the Government have turned planning into the delivery arm of politics? Would he like to speculate on why the Government are so unwilling to allow these major planning decisions to receive the full scrutiny of the House?

Bob Neill: My hon. Friend makes a valid point, and the approach does lack consistency. If we are dealing with matters of political significance, it is right that the House should have that opportunity. I suspect that the concern is that the decisions taken by the whole House might not be convenient for the policy that Government—of whatever party—wish to push through. That is genuinely a mistake, and the best current example is Heathrow airport.
	As things stand, the House would have no opportunity for a substantive vote on the proposal to build an extra runway at Heathrow. That would have massive implications not only for the communities immediately affected, which will doubtless be represented later by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), but for many people beyond the area. That is fundamentally wrong, and it sends the wrong message about the attitude of Government, as an institution, to the people on the receiving end of a planning application. If a community such as Sipson has to make a sacrifice for the greater good, there should at least be a substantive vote in the Chamber before the issue is decided.

David Drew: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a dilemma for an individual Member who may be on the Select Committee considering an NPS and may also have a direct interest in that issue? In one way, that Member might want to be on that body, but if they are, they could have a conflict of interest between representing their constituents and the greater betterment of the process. That issue has not been resolved, but it could be resolved if it came back to the House for a final vote.

Bob Neill: The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point. Whatever the Government's intentions, we are in danger of importing to our Select Committees some of the difficulties with conflicts of interest that we see on planning committees throughout the country.
	I have set out my principled objection to the lack of a substantive vote, but various practical difficulties also arise, even with the revisions to the proposals as a result of discussion since consideration in Committee. The proposals before us do not address the conflict of interest that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) rightly raised. That issue would be resolved by having a debate on the Floor of the House and a vote.
	One practical issue is the logistics involved in existing Select Committees having to provide people to man the Joint Committees. I have served on a Select Committee and I know how difficult it is, with Members' commitments and diaries, to maintain a cadre of Members who attend regularly and gel to conduct detailed scrutiny and examination. It will be much harder if people are drawn away from other commitments to come together on an ad hoc basis and then move on to something else. That will lack the continuity that is the hallmark of good scrutiny. That has certainly been my experience here and when I was a member of the London Assembly for eight years.
	Most of the Assembly's work was scrutiny, and continuity and a certain esprit de corps among members were important to the effectiveness of our scrutiny. Those factors would be difficult to achieve under these proposals. Some Select Committee Chairmen are exercised by the fact that it is not always possible to ensure that enough Members attend, and the Government have made that problem worse by creating Regional Select Committees. We are in danger of Select Committee overload.
	We want robust scrutiny by the House, and Select Committees play a vital role in that, but more is not better in this case. More Committees do not create better scrutiny. It would be better to have greater flexibility in timetabling and more open-ended debate without the guillotine being constantly used, so hon. Members would have a say when it counted. Those practical issues have not been properly addressed.

Phyllis Starkey: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that much more detailed scrutiny is possible in a Select Committee than on the Floor of the House, even if no time limits are imposed on debate? As a Back Bencher, my experience of attempting scrutiny in debate on the Floor of the House—always supposing that I am called to speak—is that it is nowhere near as effective as what I can achieve as a member of a Select Committee.

Bob Neill: I am not a million miles away from that position, but the hon. Lady has been established as the Chairman of her Committee for some time, and it has continuity of membership, so it has exactly the esprit de corps that I mentioned. The sort of Select Committee that is proposed will make it much harder to achieve that. I do not say that there is no role for some Select Committee consideration of proposals, but that should be part of the process, not the end of it.
	I hope that the system can be made to work, despite the difficulties, but the key test is whether, following scrutiny by a viable Select Committee, there is an opportunity for a substantive vote on the Floor of the House. The amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington does not go as far as I would wish in that regard, but it would provide for the triggering of a vote. If the amendment is pressed to a vote, my hon. Friends and I will be minded to support it. While it does not go as far as we want, it at least seeks to address an important principle that is missing from the proposals.
	I shall end by returning to the important point of principle that I mentioned first. I referred to my time as a member of the London Assembly. One of my constituents once asked me, "Bob, how did you vote on the congestion charge?" I had to tell them, "Well, we never actually had a vote on it." Although it was one of the most significant policy decisions taken by the Greater London authority, the structure was such that it never permitted a substantive vote on the floor of the Assembly. The reaction of my constituent was, "Well, that is potty. What is the point of the Assembly then?" I have a real fear that, at a time of grave concern about the relevance of the House, it is not helpful to suggest that key national decisions should be taken without this House, after scrutiny, having a substantive vote. In the current climate, that is a misreading of what people expect.
	If the Government were to come back with proposals that allowed a substantive vote on the Floor of the House, our attitude might be different, but as things stand, we would be minded to support the amendment. The Minister made an articulate and thoughtful case, but it did not address the fundamental issue of accountability.

Phyllis Starkey: I offer the House an apology on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), the Chairman of the Transport Committee. She had wished to participate in this debate, but her Committee is meeting now so she has had to leave. On her behalf, I will make one of the points that she wished to make.
	I wish to make a few general points about the proposals before the House on mechanisms for parliamentary scrutiny of national policy statements. This is a very positive step, because it provides for parliamentary scrutiny. People argue that that scrutiny will not be as good as it should be, but the principle is excellent. In particular, the principle of using the Select Committee structure to facilitate that scrutiny, and give an expanded role to the members of Select Committees, should be applauded.
	I have been slightly surprised by the initial response of some Members, including some Chairs of Select Committees, to the proposal. They seemed to say, "Goodness, we've all got far too much to do and we don't want any more." At a time of enormous debate about whether Parliament is providing value for money, it ill behoves us as parliamentarians, when we are being given the ability to scrutinise more and a statutory place in the process that involves placing additional burdens on members of Select Committees, to say, "We'd rather not, thank you. We would prefer it if Ministers just got on with it in the normal way and we merely debated these things on the Floor of the House." That is not to say that debates on the Floor of the House are not important—I do not want to be misinterpreted in that way. However, as I have said, Select Committees provide a very different environment in which there can be much more detailed give and take and where we can get much more detailed scrutiny.
	I think, broadly speaking, that this is an excellent initiative. I welcome the fact that the Government have been trying to give Parliament and Select Committees a greater role and I certainly would not want to be associated with any suggestion that Select Committees should not take on that role. MPs can reorder their work if they think that sufficient priority should be given to matters such as the scrutiny of these statements. If I may make a slightly wicked comment, I do not think that if they were full-time MPs it would be difficult for them to find the time.

Paul Truswell: I do not think that there has been any suggestion in today's debate that the role of the Select Committee is not crucial. The point is that the Select Committee, like a Public Bill Committee, should scrutinise an NPS in detail and then bring it to the House for a substantive vote, in much the same way as we do with Bills. My hon. Friend should rest assured—I hope she agrees—that NPSs can be just as important in their impact on the country and on communities as any legislation that we pass in the House.

Phyllis Starkey: Absolutely. At the end of my speech, I shall briefly come to the issue about the vote.
	I also want to highlight the welcome way Ministers and the Leader of the House engaged with the Chairs of the relevant Select Committees over this process. As the Minister has mentioned, the proposals that were first suggested were very different from those we have now. At a time when a lot of the publicity about the work of the House is extremely negative, I want to bring into the open the fact that the meetings in the Leader of the House's office and the to-ing and fro-ing of suggestions and counter-suggestions between Ministers and the Chairs of Select Committees were incredibly constructive. We have finished up with a process that is light years ahead of the one first suggested.

Jacqui Lait: Is the hon. Lady prepared to give credit to the House? On Second Reading of the 2008 Act we put the most pressure on to ensure that the Select Committee structure was much more flexible than the Government originally proposed.

Phyllis Starkey: I shall leave the hon. Lady's remarks to stand by themselves, as I cannot recall what was said. Only the Minister—not the Under-Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright), who is in the Chamber now, but the Minister for Local Government—could say what went on in his innermost mind and what had more effect on him. However, I do not want to take away from other people. I simply want to bring into the open part of the procedure that went on in this building—not in public, because such meetings do not happen in public—to demonstrate that more goes on in the House than what occurs in the Chamber or in Westminster Hall.

Graham Stuart: Like the hon. Lady, I think that the work of Select Committees is important and useful, as it provides a form of scrutiny that is not easily duplicated in the Chamber, but does she share my doubt about the number of Select Committee places that there seem to be? I am told by a colleague—I do not know whether it is right—that the numbers might have as much as doubled in the past few years and that there are too many places. As a result, MPs—even if they are full time and fully committed—have struggled to attend meetings and to do the necessary preparation that makes those meetings so useful.

Phyllis Starkey: The hon. Gentleman will be reassured to hear that that discussion has gone on in the Liaison Committee. I think that that Committee has expressed the view that it will want to see a review of the number of places on Select Committees. My personal view is that it was a mistake to increase the size of certain Select Committees, since it appears to me that that has put huge stress on the system without—I shall choose my words carefully—seeming to add unduly enormously to the work of those Committees. Any reduction in the number of places would obviously free people up without our needing to reduce the number of Committees, although there might be some duplication of Committees, too.
	I want to remind hon. Members that we are talking about planning documents, which is why my Committee is involved. Members who have been in local councils will know that planning is slightly different locally and at a national level from other matters that are discussed by councils and Parliament. We need to keep that in mind, as it has a bearing on the discussion about whether or not we should have a substantive vote on a planning document. I am sure that the Minister is better apprised of parliamentary rules than I am, but my understanding is—the amendment might alter this, but I do not think that it does—that there is no statutory requirement for a vote to take place before a statement can be designated as an NPS. I am not quite clear whether the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) would alter that in any way.
	I want to reiterate what planning documents are about. They are, of course, about balancing opposing rights and creating sensible land-use policy that meets needs locally, regionally and nationally. In my view, the process has to be seen to be fair and transparent, but it must not be subject to undue delay. I accept that the word "undue" is very subjective, and of course the process must be long enough to ensure that every organisation and person has a reasonable opportunity to put their point of view cogently. Of course, there needs to be sufficient time for those views to be considered and appraised and for decisions to be taken. However, I do not think that anybody's interests—even those of the individuals or organisations that might be unhappy with the eventual outcome—are served when the planning process is simply dragged out by endless delaying tactics.
	At a local level, we all know of the planning blight that descends on an area when a big proposal is in the offing but does not get determined for months or even years, for whatever reason. In my view, we need to ensure that the procedure that we are setting in place will be sufficiently long to allow proper consideration but not so long that it adds to uncertainty and delay. I do not think that that would serve the purpose of the public at large.
	There is another reason why I think that we need to be careful about having a procedure that causes undue delay. Many of the big infrastructure decisions that we have to take result from changing views about the importance of tackling climate change. Most of the reordering of our energy infrastructure, including the national grid, is necessary because we have to change the energy sources that we are using and the infrastructure in order to enable us to do that. There is an urgency to those changes that makes it all the more important that we should have a system for decision making that is not unduly lengthy and inefficient.

Paul Truswell: Will my hon. Friend explain how she feels the amendment tabled by our hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and others would lead to any undue delay? I am slightly perplexed by that suggestion; perhaps I have misconstrued what she is saying.

Phyllis Starkey: I think that my hon. Friend has misconstrued what I was saying. I was referring to the process as a whole, and not specifically to the amendment.
	I have said a lot of nice words about how the process has been arranged, and about the very positive and constructive attitude of Ministers, but on my own behalf and on behalf of my colleague the Chair of the Transport Committee, I want to raise one tiny area of concern. It has to do with the length of the relevant period for an NPS: can the Minister reassure me that Ministers who are determining that period will do so in consultation with the parliamentary authorities—the Liaison Committee and the Chairs of the relevant Select Committees?
	In addition, might Ministers be willing to extend the relevant period beyond three months if that is necessary to ensure full parliamentary scrutiny? I think that the Minister has said as much already, but I know that the Chair of the Transport Committee would prefer it if the relevant period could never be less than six months. When the Minister responds to the debate, I hope that he will deal with those two specific queries.
	Those are the main points that I wanted to make, and I urge my colleagues on Select Committees to seize this opportunity to secure a real and effective voice in the scrutiny of national policy statements. I hope that they will not use excuses about time constraints to prevent their playing a full and proper part in that process.

Daniel Rogerson: The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) spoke about the importance of camaraderie in Select Committees, and I am struck by the fact that many people in the Chamber this afternoon took an interest in the consideration of the legislation in Committee and on Report. It is nice to rekindle that camaraderie here this afternoon.
	My party has always agreed with the concept of national policy statements. The Minister for Local Government, who took the Planning Bill through Committee, was pleased that the concept met with almost universal approval. There is a determination to get beyond the problems described by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey) because, ultimately, delaying tactics achieve a different result only when they delay progress so much that policy changes in the meantime. That may have happened on occasion, but I think that we all want a system that is transparent. The rules of engagement must be clear, both for people who support a proposal and for those who have real concerns about its potential impact, and I think that national policy statements take us closer to that.
	It is important that we get the balance right on accuracy. As has been noted, national policy statements will be very significant for industry and our country's future, and also for communities in which or near which infrastructure projects are to be built. It is therefore crucial that we get the national policy statements right, and spending a little more time on them will ensure that applications can proceed as smoothly as possible. The Government have always talked about the need for speed, but speed is most necessary in the application process. We have a clear idea of how that will proceed, but it is even more important that we get setting the policy framework right. That is why I think that we need to explore the proposals before us in a little more detail.
	Setting planning policy is a much more political process than the determination of planning applications. However much people who either propose or oppose developments might like policy to exist for all time, the fact that we live in a democracy means that policy statements may change as a result of general elections or referendums. That is the case because all Governments have their own views about how issues can be resolved.
	For example, my party and the Government have different views about the use of nuclear technology in our future energy supply. I know that the Conservative party has a range of opinions on the matter, and it is probably fair to say that the same is true of all parties. A future Administration may adopt a different policy from the present Government's, with the result that the relevant national policy statements might have to be revisited. National policy statements will not be put in place once and for all, or for a period of 10 years, for example, because it is inevitable that things will move on and changes happen.

Alan Whitehead: I am following carefully the hon. Gentleman's line of argument, but does he accept that a national policy statement may be something of a hybrid—a mixture of a statement about Government policy made at the Dispatch Box, and something along the lines of a planning policy guidance note? He has noted that policy can change when the Government do, so does he accept that there may be a tension between a statement setting out Government policy and an NPS, which is quasi-judicial by nature? He has said that national policy statements can be altered by an incoming Government, so does he think that they will be the primary vehicle for such a Government to set out their thinking?

Daniel Rogerson: That is clearly a consideration, which is why we should look beyond the short to medium term and acknowledge that changes may occur. Some of the matters covered by national policy statements may become crucial issues of difference between parties and very important at any general election or referendum that might take place as the parliamentary process moves forward.
	How will the proposals contained in an NPS be scrutinised, and by whom? Will the House carry out that scrutiny and so have a say in what emerges, or will the process be led by the Government? The Minister for Local Government is on record as saying that the promotion of coherent policy is clearly a role for Government, but I agree with the hon. Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) that the NPS is something of a hybrid. While one would expect the Government of the day to put forward a proposal, it is legitimate for individual hon. Members to want to be able to offer input about site-specific concerns that might have far reaching consequences for their constituents.
	In passing, I want to say that my party is not convinced that implementing a framework of national policy statements necessitates an Infrastructure Planning Commission. The Government have said that there is a clear distinction between democratic involvement in setting policy and the far more dispassionate and objective process of determining applications. I shall return to that later in my remarks, and for now merely note that the Government are on record as setting out that as their position.
	Let me move on to consider the arrangements in more detail. During the Minister's contribution, there was a debate, conducted through intervention, about the time factor. As I mentioned in my intervention on him, it is sensible that there should be a period of 40 days in which the right information can be put before the House. That will follow a Select Committee process that has been far more rigorous, in which the Select Committee will have had the opportunity to consider evidence in more detail.
	However, I echo the comments made by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West about whether there is to be a minimum period over which the whole process takes place. I fear that it may call into question people's confidence in the process, if not its legitimacy, if the Secretary of State, who is ultimately the promoter of the policy, decides what the relevant period is. It would therefore help if there was a minimum period, or perhaps a range of time within which the House might expect consideration to take place. The relevant Secretary of State would determine a period within that range, as was appropriate, in consultation with the Liaison Committee and the Select Committee Chairs. That might help to raise confidence in the process.
	There is also the issue of the interaction between the time scale for scrutiny and the consultation process going on in the real world. The Campaign to Protect Rural England has said that it is keen that there should be a period, after the public consultation, when the Select Committee is still giving the matter consideration, so that whatever is fed forward gets through to the Select Committee. That is absolutely right, because it means that the Select Committee can feel confident that it has had access to as much information, and as many of the views of the public, as possible.

David Drew: To be fair to CPRE, it has made it absolutely clear that the process of consultation will both pre-empt and end, as it were, the whole process. That includes ideas such as citizens' juries and much wider engagement with the general public. We cannot see the issue as a narrow, focused one; it is much wider than that, and that needs to be put on record.

Daniel Rogerson: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right; he has put that on record, and I appreciate his intervention. We have had debates in public, including in the House today, about how the House and indeed the political process at all levels are viewed by the public. That is inevitably influenced by how members of the public come into contact with elected representatives, and the public's aspirations for their views to be put forward, listened to and dealt with. The hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst gave the very good example of the congestion charge as a case in which the public sometimes feel let down by the process. So we must have confidence that any consultation is genuine and as wide as possible, and we must have confidence that it leads to a proper process of scrutiny that allows Members of this House to engage with the process of setting a national policy statement; ultimately, they are the only elected representatives who will be able to do so.
	The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) raised the issue of how non-expert witnesses may be supported, which is crucial. When looking at the resources that are made available to Select Committees, we must bear in mind, especially where there are site-specific concerns, that members of the public may be intimidated, however eloquent and well-informed they are about what is going on in their local community, by being called before a parliamentary Select Committee, alongside organisations that are represented by public affairs consultants and lobbyists. Those members of the public need to be given support, too, to ensure that the excellent points that they have to make are put in the best light possible, and explored as fully as they would wish. I hope that the Minister will say how that concern might be addressed.
	There is also a question to be asked about the policy background against which members of different Select Committees work. Where a Committee is drawn from the membership of different Select Committees, there should be a broad balance; for example, the Committee chaired by the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West, has planning expertise. I have the honour to be on the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee; it should have an equal voice, or at least an appropriately strong voice, on a Joint Committee, alongside Committees that have more expertise in dealing with industry and so on, so that we can ensure that there is a balance of views across the piece.
	Having expressed those reservations about the system, I point out that the Select Committee process is probably the best way that we have of proceeding. It is established, and Members are used to using it. There is expertise among the House authorities on how to support Select Committees, provide the information and ensure smooth proceedings. Despite my concerns about timing, and concerns that hon. Members have expressed about the work load, I think that the Select Committee process is the best way of proceeding.
	Nevertheless, there are deficiencies in the Government's motion. That is why I am pleased to see the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). It gets to the heart of what we discussed while the Planning Bill was making progress in the House. We discussed it again this afternoon. Ultimately, there needs to be a vote. There needs to be an opportunity for Members who have great concerns about an issue connected with a national policy statement to vote; they are elected on the same basis as those Members who serve on the relevant Select Committee. We all have equal legitimacy in this House. We are talking about issues that can affect all constituencies; indeed, they may well affect some constituencies considerably more than others. We may hear a little bit about that later. All Members should have a chance to have a final say. That is why I welcome the amendment tabled by the hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will seek to press it to a Division. My colleagues and I certainly wish to support it.
	There is a great deal of work to be done. National policy statements, if handled properly, can make a significant contribution to ensuring that the planning process is more transparent and efficient, and is up to being challenged, as it should be, by the people out there. They may challenge its accuracy and ability to reflect the aspirations of the country as a whole, and the aspirations of local communities. If there are few points at which the democratic process is involved in the part of the planning system that we are discussing, and if decisions on individual applications are to be taken by appointed people, rather than elected people, we should remember, as the Minister for Local Government said in Committee, that it is when policy is set that the democratic voice must be heard. Ultimately, the only way that that can happen is if there is a vote in the House.

John McDonnell: The timing of this debate could not have been more significant. Yesterday, we heard a statement saying that we in Parliament are about to clean up our act when it comes to expenses. I thought the Prime Minister made an excellent statement—which had cross-party support, I noticed—about our starting the process of restoring parliamentary democracy and restoring status to this House as the premises in which we will decide the future of our country in a democratic fashion. This is the first test of whether that statement is serious. I appeal to everyone here: this could be the first day of a new process.
	This may sound naive, but I want to make an appeal. It is an important decision that we are making today. I do not want to talk just about Heathrow or anything like that; the issue is much more important than that. This is much more important than just an arid planning debate, too. The debate is about whether we were serious about the statements made yesterday, which had cross-party support in the House, and about restoring credibility to parliamentary democracy in this country. I urge Members, Ministers and others to say, "Look, this could be the first day of a new debating fashion. This could be a new way to make decisions in this House." We could come out of the trenches and start talking about a serious way forward to improve the decision-making processes that will affect the lives of millions of our constituents.
	The discussion that we have had so far has been about how Parliament scrutinises the national policy statements that we have brought forward. I have to say that the debate that has taken place on the scrutiny process has been excellent. To a certain extent it has been on the Floor of the House, but it has largely taken place among Chairs of Select Committees and members of the Liaison Committee. Debate has been limited for those who do not serve on Committees, but as an observer with my nose pressed up against the window, at least I can see that there has been a good debate about how that scrutiny process will proceed.
	But Parliament does more than scrutinise. Parliament has to decide. My amendment is about how the Chamber comes to decisions on critically important matters. I understand the criticism that the Floor of the House is not necessarily the best place for scrutiny and sometimes not the best place for decision making, but for some of us it is the only place. It is the long stop of democracy. It allows us to voice our concerns, move amendments and maybe—not often—secure the will of the House to change the mind of Government and others. There is no more important issue than the planning process that we are deciding today.
	We are setting up the Infrastructure Planning Commission. Alongside that, we have to a certain extent—I know some believe that others have exaggerated this—curtailed some of the earlier planning processes in relation to individual applications to try to speed the process up. There are some concerns that members of the public, people who are affected, individual organisations, community groups and so on may not have as full a say and right of representation as they have in the past under previous processes. That is a matter for debate.
	If there has been some curtailment of the earlier process, it is critical that when we shape the IPC's decision-making process, we allow the fullest scrutiny and debate, and ultimately democratic decisions. The IPC will be guided by the national policy statements. It will set the parameters for consideration of and decisions on planning applications for major infrastructure projects which will determine the future shape of this country and its physical environment for generations to come. It will affect the lives of hundreds of thousands of constituents and millions of members of our communities. Such projects will include airports, nuclear power stations and major rail developments, most of which are extremely controversial because of their impact on local communities.
	National policy statements are not general policy statements, as my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr. Whitehead) pointed out. They are not like the old-fashioned planning policy guidelines. They are more than that. They are in some respects like White Papers, but more definitive. The White Paper on aviation, for example, which was mentioned earlier, was site-specific. National policy statements will set a policy and identify potential sites for the implementation of that policy. They will therefore narrow the decision-making process of the IPC.

David Drew: My hon. Friend is right. A national policy statement will be the basis of any local planning inquiry. It will not be general, like a White Paper. It will contain the details that are fought over at any subsequent planning inquiry. That is why national policy statements must be right and fair.

John McDonnell: I agree. That is why the present hybrid situation calls for greater democratic participation by the Chamber.
	I am aware of the issues in relation to the quasi-judicial aspects of planning. I have served on planning committees on a range of bodies, including the old GLC, and I have seen the mystification of the planning process through the concept of quasi-judicial roles. I learned the Wednesbury principles by heart, not least because at the GLC we had the Economic League threatening us with legal action almost on a daily basis. That mystifies the process. We are trying to set the parameters of policy making and define them for the IPC, which will set up the processes whereby individual decisions are made.
	Setting up national policy statements, agreeing to them and having them designated by the Government as guidance for the IPC is critical. I welcome the role of Select Committees. I accept that it will be an onerous task, but Members of Parliament can demonstrate that they can rise to the task. I urge Members who have been critical of the Select Committee process so far to engage in it. There is potential for more Members to become involved and become more aware, but I agree that the process requires the resourcing of those who will provide evidence to those Select Committees.
	I have attended planning inquiry after planning inquiry for years and I do not want to relive my experiences at the terminal 4 inquiry, the terminal 5 inquiry and all the rest. We know how evidence can be presented and shaped effectively by those who are well resourced. Those who may not have the ability to commission a bit of extra research—on respiratory conditions in their area, for example—are swamped by the heavy investment of those promoting a particular project or approach.
	There are some Members who do not serve on Select Committees. I cannot understand why—further mystification, perhaps. I was offered a place on the Northern Ireland Committee on the basis that I dropped my opposition to the City of London (Ward Elections) Bill. I reported that to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards for investigation because I thought it was a bribe.
	There are a number of us who are not on Select Committees, so it is fundamental that we have the opportunity to participate not only in the scrutiny process but in the decision-making process. A vote makes scrutiny meaningful. We can all scrutinise something; we can all have general opinions about anything, but our constituents send us here not just to have opinions but to decide the policies of this country. That is what my amendment seeks to do.
	The amendment suggests that when the Select Committee process has ended, a report is provided to the House. If it is uncontentious and the Select Committee recommends approval, we have a debate for a maximum of one and a half hours, the Question is put and the statement is agreed or not. If it is contentious, and there are recommendations from the Select Committee not to approve the national policy statement, a debate of up to three hours is held, and then we vote on the matter.
	One and a half hours or three hours is not an undue delay in the planning process. It will add legitimacy to any decision on a national policy statement that will influence the IPC's decision, which will have consequences for decisions on major infrastructure projects affecting our constituents, many of them significantly. If we are not allowed a vote on those matters, that will undermine the legitimacy of the decisions that will eventually arise as a result of IPC considerations and IPC inquiries into individual matters.
	Let me give the example of Heathrow in the context of my amendment. Like every hon. Member, I stood for election, knocked on every door in my constituency over the years, and explained my views on particular issues. People voted and I had the honour of being elected to become the voice of my constituents in the House. As a result of a potential planning decision that will come through this process, a number of my constituents will lose their homes. We have debated the matter at length in the House—700 homes could be lost at Sipson, and 2,000 residents could lose their homes. We have another meeting tomorrow night with BAA, and we think the figure is now 4,000 homes, as the Government predicted in the early 1990s, so perhaps 10,000 people will be affected, as well as their homes, schools, churches, the gurdwara and even a road through our cemetery. Those people want to know that they elected an MP not just to go to the House to talk on their behalf, but to participate in this country's democratic decision-making process that will determine the policy that eventually influences the final decision on whether they lose their homes and communities. That is all my amendment would do. It simply says, "Allow Members to express their views, but then allow them to make the decision." That is democracy, is it not? Is that not what Parliament is for? Is that not what we all stood for election for?
	The argument is that a planning policy statement is different from any other decision, but when the Crossrail project went through the House, we had a Committee that brought a Bill before the House that we could debate and amend, and there was a full and democratic decision-making process. Why can we not just have a simple vote? I am not asking for enormous, lengthy Committee sittings. We have the Select Committee process, and there are relevant Members on those Committees, some with expertise going back many years, who can give us their views. We can listen to their opinion on the matter, the Government can state their argument and, at the end of the day, we can, I hope, come to a decision.
	Democracy is at stake. The issue is whether what we said yesterday about restoring the status and democratic credentials of Parliament was what we really intended, or whether it was just words upon the air and another form of spin. The forthcoming vote is one of the most important that we will ever have, because it will decide whether we are serious about restoring democracy. If the Government do not think again, and if we are not allowed the opportunity to vote on this issue, which could be influential and important to so many of our constituents, we will not just do ourselves a disservice, but, yet again, undermine the credibility of the House in the eyes of all our constituents.

Jacqui Lait: It is an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). Although I do not regard myself as a natural ally of his, on this legislation we have been at one, and on the Floor of the House we have regularly fought the battle to try to get a final democratic lock on national policy statements. I suppose that we should therefore congratulate ourselves on one thing—the fact that we were able to do battle on the Floor of the House.
	I agree that, following the events of the past few weeks and yesterday's statements, it is so important for the House to get back its democratic accountability and credibility. This is a great opportunity for the Government to put their money where their mouth is and give back to Parliament some of the legitimacy that they have taken away over the past few years. I was therefore delighted when my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill), and constituency neighbour, indicated that we would support the amendment and, if there were an opportunity, go further—although we will stick with what we have for now.
	The hon. Gentleman couched the debate in stark terms. There is no disagreement in any part of the House about the need for the national policy statements. We must replace and renew our infrastructure, and it is important that we get on with that work. We have put forward ideas for getting on with it in a practical sense and more rapidly than the current system, but we have always accepted the idea of the national policy statements. We have always been against the Infrastructure Planning Commission, however, because it is fundamentally undemocratic and we want to return to Parliament and to Ministers the responsibility that the British public believe they have to make the final decisions on planning. The hon. Gentleman said that that is the mystique of the quasi-judicial process, and we understand that, but to the British public, the Minister is the person who is responsible for making decisions about airports, roads, harbours, waste facilities, nuclear power stations and wind farms. That is absolutely correct, and the Planning Act 2008 does tremendous harm to the idea of the democracy of the people, because it allows Ministers to pass over to an unelected quango the decision that the British people feel Ministers were elected to make.
	Again, it is not often that I agree with the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Communities and Local Government. As one who has sat on several Select Committees, I am deeply sceptical about the value of their work, and I apologise if there are people here who are wedded to the idea of them. However, I do not know whether I want the Whips to hear this, because I think that sitting on inquiries into the national policy statements would be a very interesting and worthwhile exercise. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for West Chelmsford (Mr. Burns) has not made a note of that statement!
	The discussions on how the national policy statements will be examined started on the Floor of the House and continued subsequently. On the structure that has emerged, people think, "Let's start with it, and see how it grows and whether it works." It is a good, flexible structure, and I was pleased to hear from the Minister that there seems to be sufficient time both for the public and parliamentary consultations to meld together and for proper scrutiny. Although I understand the point that the hon. Member for Milton Keynes, South-West and her colleague the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Transport, made about ensuring that there is sufficient time, I think that the time scale can be adhered to.
	However, one little quirk of the 40-day period that the House will have to scrutinise the Select Committee's report is that it leaves plenty of time for a substantive debate on the Floor of the House so that we can make a decision. If a Committee should come up with a recommendation that the Government like or dislike, quite apart from what any Member likes or dislikes, there will be an opportunity to thrash it out on the Floor of the House and vote on it. If we believe in democracy, we ought to recognise that the decision should be made in this Chamber; it should not be made by Ministers who are unaccountable because they have passed decision-making powers to the Infrastructure Planning Commission.
	If, under the new system, a Committee report is debated in the House only because it is at odds with what the Minister or the national policy statement wants, what will happen? There may be no vote, but the House could be united against a national policy statement, such as a site-specific statement on a nuclear power station. This is beyond the bounds of common sense, but should there ever be a proposal for a nuclear power station in the London borough of Bromley, I imagine that people would be united in opposition.

Bob Neill: Hear, hear!

Jacqui Lait: I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour. I am a great supporter of nuclear power stations, but I cannot imagine that anybody would accept that there is an argument for putting one, however good its safety record might be, in the middle of the suburbs. That would not be a logical suggestion, and there would be united opposition to it across the House. However, could the Secretary of State continue with the proposal? Where in the democratic process would the British public stand?
	My example is extreme. However, if a Select Committee report came out with a proposition that the Secretary of State did not like, who would have the final say? Where would the British public be in all this?

David Drew: Does the hon. Lady accept that it is not unknown for two different Select Committees to come up with two completely contrary statements, which, obviously, would build on the national policy statements? How would that situation be resolved, unless through this place? A Minister would need help; they would have to make a representation on the Floor of the House, and we might have to resolve the dilemma as a Chamber. Is that not a reasonable supposition?

Jacqui Lait: It is very reasonable. The more one looks at the consequences of this proposal, which involves no democratic vote on the Floor of the Chamber, the more difficulties one sees emerge. I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman.
	I do not think that anybody else has brought up my final point. Without a vote on the Floor of the House, there is every possibility that the Government's objective of speeding up the planning system for infrastructure projects will be immediately compromised, because the well-funded lobby groups—many of whose pockets will be deeper than those of the people who want to do the development—could take the projects straight to judicial review.
	I do not think that the Minister was present during the public inquiry part of the Planning Public Bill Committee; he was probably engaged in business on the Housing and Regeneration Bill. I should tell him that a number of the lobby groups put it on the record that they would be looking to conduct judicial reviews of national policy statements that had not been subject to a vote in the House. It does not take a lot of imagination to see how long it could take to get the judicial review of a national policy statement through the legal system—bang would go the speeding up of planning applications which the Minister and most of the rest of us want under this new process.
	Yet again, I beg the Government please to think through the implications of not having a substantive vote in the House. We all broadly agree on the structure and on how we should look at the national policy statements. However, we want to give them a fair wind, and they will get one only if there is a democratic vote in this Chamber.

Paul Truswell: I do not intend to detain the House for too long, because my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) admirably enumerated all the reasons why the House should support the amendment in his name and the names of colleagues such as me. Throughout discussion of the Planning Bill—or the Planning Act 2008, as it is now—I said that my starting point was to apply one test: how far did it maintain or improve the existing process in respect of my constituents, of me as their elected representative or of any other member of a community? My view is that the legislation dramatically failed that test.
	It would not be appropriate for me to rehearse that debate and I shall resist the temptation, as other Members have. However, there is a democratic deficit. The process that existed previously allowed the public not only to make a case at a public inquiry, but to subject the evidence to cross-examination; that is a fundamental democratic issue, and also one of fairness. There is now a major gap and chasm in the process. My hon. Friend has clearly defined why he tabled his amendment, and one of his reasons for doing so is to try to bridge that chasm.
	It has been said on a number of occasions in this debate that national policy statements will be a crucial framework. It is crucial, therefore, that we get them right. Once they are agreed, the die will be cast; they will be the tram lines on which public inquiries and the Infrastructure Planning Commission will run. We know from experience that communities often disagree with specific proposals put forward by developers, and that many of the protests that our constituents make will be overridden by reference to the existing national policy statement that governs the particular planning application or major infrastructure proposal under discussion. That is why we have to get NPSs absolutely right.
	I had written down the fact that the process that my hon. Friend is recommending is a democratic backstop; he got there first in using that phrase, but I reiterate it. If our constituents, wherever they live, feel individually or collectively that they have been stripped of a right that currently exists, they will look to us, as their elected representatives, to perform that role of backstop, which is why the amendment is so crucial.
	The hon. Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) was right to say that the whole process has opened itself up to judicial review, which will clearly flow from one or more of the documents and applications that come before us. All the arguments have been made in that respect. I think that we will get not only judicial review but more direct action, because the idea that legitimacy is being stripped out of the process will aggravate people to such a great extent.
	I do not intend to reiterate the arguments that have been made; I wanted only briefly to reinforce what has been said by so many Members, but particularly by my hon. Friend. I hope that even at this late stage, we will be able to register the view of this House that we ultimately need a substantive vote to legitimise the process, having taken so much legitimacy out of it.

John Howell: Like everyone else, I must begin my remarks by thanking the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) for introducing his amendment, which I hope that he will press to a vote.
	Anyone looking in on this debate and reading today's Order Paper could not avoid seeing the complexity of the motion that is before us. They would probably think that common sense had gone out of the window, because although the motion is complex, it entirely misses the point that what the planning system lacks is real democratic accountability. The Government have underestimated the extent of public anger and suspicion about the planning process and the public's lack of trust in the planning process and in those who take planning decisions. In all the years that I have been involved in planning matters, I cannot recall a time when the planning system has been so characterised by confrontation and all-pervading conspiracy theories because of the lack of transparency that occurs in relation to almost any major decision. It would be easy to characterise that as nimbyism, and many do, but that is so insulting to the people and communities who have genuine concerns to raise about large projects. The attitude of the public owes a lot to the lack of democratic accountability in the system at all levels.
	The Minister referred to the need for consultation during the process. I have to say to him that, in my experience, the Government's track record on consultation is shot to pieces. People do not trust the consultation process, and I would like to hear whether he has any more ideas about how he is going to put trust back into it. Is it to be based around the sort of consultation that we have seen for some of the regional spatial strategies? In my area, the south-east plan did not go out of its way to involve ordinary people. It involved the great and the good—even some of the great and the good in the county councils and district councils—but it failed to have any resonance at all with ordinary people on the ground. That is why they are so angry. When those plans were published, they contained the very things that they had fought against. In many cases they raised their own money to do that, and not on nimby grounds but for good reasons.
	I am a great admirer of Select Committees. I know that I have not been here as long as many Members who are present in the Chamber, but I am on a Select Committee and enjoy its work very much. I particularly enjoy the opportunity that it provides to delve into matters in detail and question Ministers, officials and other experts at great length. However, that misses the point that what people want is the scrutiny and decision making in this House that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill) said, allows a constituent to come and ask us, "How did you vote on this particular issue?"
	The Floor of the House is a perfectly proper place for discussions on documents such as national policy statements, because they are not purely planning documents. The description of them in the White Paper, "Planning for a Sustainable Future," states that they will
	"provide a clear statement of policy and the nature of infrastructure development necessary to deliver our wider goals of improving people's quality of life, economic prosperity and protecting and enhancing the environment."
	There is a planning element in there, absolutely, but there is much more about economic development and the overall picture of development. It is perfectly proper that that should be debated on the Floor of the House and, in fact, I would feel upset if I did not have the opportunity to influence a decision on such a wide issue.
	For the reasons that have already been stated, I do not like the Infrastructure Planning Commission. It is one of the most spineless inventions that we have seen in the planning system. As I said in my earlier intervention, over the past few years the planning system has been deliberately moved towards being the delivery arm of Government policy. That is the right direction, because planning does not exist in an isolated world of its own. It is there to deliver whatever the policies of the Government are, and I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with the inconsistency that follows, which means that when it comes to contentious national projects, the Government want to hide behind a whole new structure that takes them out of the picture.
	The planning system that we have at the moment is one of the most highly fragmented that I have come across. Bits of planning decisions are taken here, bits there and bits in other places. There is little interaction in the system between national policy statements and the planning policy statements and guidance. I join my hon. Friends in welcoming some form of national policy statement for infrastructure projects, but the debate has moved on. There must now be a big argument about whether it is right for national policy statements to be stand-alone documents or whether they should be included in something much broader that establishes an overall policy framework for the country, priorities within that and the tools and means of delivering it. If the Minister wishes to have an example of how that might work, let me point out that whenever I talk to planning consultants, they start to go weepy-eyed and enthusiastic about what the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly are doing to turn their planning systems around and to provide a structure in which things can be seen in the context of what those Governments want to achieve.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) was absolutely right to highlight the risk of judicial review. The Campaign to Protect Rural England website has already listed the main reasons why one would be able to take something to a judicial review. Although the CPRE qualifies that with a statement that
	"In general, the use of judicial review should be considered very much as a last resort as it is risky"—
	it might have added "expensive"—I submit that it would not put four detailed reasons on its website if it were not encouraging people to use them. So we already have a good example of how that would work.
	There is a good argument for accountability and debate in Parliament generally, rather than in a Select Committee alone, as the Government propose. I echo the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst that, although the amendment does not go as far as we would like, it is a good step in the right direction, which I would be pleased to support.

Alan Simpson: My hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) is right that there could not be a better time for the House to debate the amendment to the proposals for national policy statements. There is a call for a root-and-branch rethink of what Parliament is about—not only how we manage our expenses, but how we accept responsibility for the big issues that affect people's lives and the country's future, and how we hold ourselves accountable in that process. It is also true, as my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Mr. Truswell) said, that we lost the right in the Planning Act 2008 for the public to hold people to account for big decisions through planning inquiries. There remains the role of the House in holding people to account for the big decisions of state.
	Although it is important to build consultation and scrutiny into decision making, and both are necessary conditions of a democratic process, they are not sufficient to define its existence. The third element, which completes the process, is accountability. A great difficulty—and a source of frustration to me during my time in Parliament—is the way in which Parliament has been stripped out of the democratic process because we have farmed out accountability for decision-making responsibilities.
	I am sure that the Minister has read the novel, "Catch-22". I invite him to reflect on one of the characters: Major Major. He did not want to be in the army but ended up there because it was a family tradition, and became a major. However, he hated the responsibility for making decisions, so he found a way of surviving by introducing a rule whereby every member of the armed forces was free to consult him and put requests to him at any time, as long he was not there. Only when he was in his office were the doors closed. That was an effective way of not making any difficult decisions. My worry is that Parliament has been reduced to that position. Whenever there were big decisions to be made, we were not there. That would persist under the proposed framework.
	Of course, we can have scrutiny and consultations, but when a matter comes before the House, we may, at best, be able to vote on a motion. As every Member knows, that often amounts to voting on no more than whether to adjourn. I am sure that most Members have experienced the great difficulty of explaining to their constituents their monumental and heroic stance in deciding whether to vote to adjourn the debate.
	Do we continue with a procedure that will take us nowhere, or abandon it? Such a procedure does not help with credibility; it does not cut much ice when we try to address the issue of the House accepting the responsibilities that go with our standing for election to make decisions about the major issues that affect people's lives. The amendment before us today would restore the House's right to cast a substantive vote. That does not seem a particularly radical proposal: it just says that the House takes itself seriously and that we recognise that there is often an important distinction to be drawn between the interests of the Government and the interests of Parliament. It is Parliament's role to hold the Government to account. The ways in which we do so include the right to have a vote on a substantive motion.
	I understand that the quasi-judicial interpretation of planning responsibilities is often wheeled out in an attempt to discourage politicians from interfering in decision-making processes. So too is the argument that, often, an issue will be of such enormous importance that it just has to be decided upon without undue delay. Our proposal would not cause any undue delay at all, but it does accept that the House can, and frequently does, bring to the scrutiny process something that can counteract the inequalities built into the consultation process, however open it may be.
	A number of hon. Members have mentioned the fact that huge inequalities of power, resources and influence are built into the planning processes. Those same inequalities are built into the ability to make representations to our Select Committee hearings. One countervailing power that is frequently demonstrated in the House is the ability of hon. Members from all parties to come here remarkably well informed and remarkably unafraid to put the arguments that many of their constituents are unable to muster either the confidence or the resources to put themselves.
	Our proposal would be an enhancement of the democratic process. It would give the House the right to define a position that may not suit what the Government want to do. Ultimately, if this House considers itself to be the guardian of democratic processes and part of the arm lock, which requires democratic accountability to be exercised in this Chamber, it is right that we should reserve the right to say no and to tell the Government of the day, whatever Government they may be, that we do not agree with their policy.
	A substantive right to a vote on such statements would restore that to the House. It would indicate, at this hugely important point in restoring our democratic credentials for the future, that we are unafraid to put down a marker and exercise the one duty that every member of our electorate assumes that we have when we are elected, which is to come to the House and cast a vote that has a meaning. If we cannot do that, we will be throwing the towel in on our democratic credibility, and at a time when that credibility could barely be lower. I hope that the House has the courage to reclaim this platform, from which we now have to rebuild our democratic credentials, and will support the amendment standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington.

Alan Whitehead: I do not intend to detain the House long, although I imagine that my comments will probably make me no friends whatever in any part of the House.
	As I intimated in an intervention, my difficulty in approaching the motion relates to the status of a national planning policy statement, which will clearly be a hybrid. It will be based partly on what regularly happens at the Dispatch Box when a Minister makes a statement on Government policy, takes questions and sits down, with no vote being taken. Such statements can be prayed in aid, one way or another, in a planning inquiry, even though they are not specifically related to it.
	On the other hand, the national planning policy statements that are envisaged will go substantially beyond the point at which they could be regarded simply as a Government statement—they will be much more substantial. In some ways, they will more closely resemble planning policy guidance statements, which also are not subject to a vote on the Floor of the House before they are completed, but which nevertheless go before planning inquiries and play a substantial part in determining the framework of the inquiry. Indeed, people on both sides of the inquiry will refer to parts of the guidance statement to support their case.
	I thoroughly support the scrutiny that now takes place. A good job was done in ensuring that, by the time the Planning Bill became an Act, procedures had been incorporated to enable such scrutiny. The motion reflects the follow-on from what emerged in the Planning Act 2008.
	There is a choice between the scrutiny being undertaken by either a Select Committee or a Committee set up by the Liaison Committee specifically for the purpose, but I feel that a preference should be expressed. One might say that a Select Committee would normally be asked to scrutinise a proposed document and that, exceptionally, a Committee might be set up for the purpose. At the moment, there seems to be an either/or that is neutral on which option is preferred. Perhaps we should suggest a preference.
	Should a Select Committee discuss a planning statement? Because it is a statement, it is extremely unlikely that the Committee would simply say, "No, we don't like the apparent policy behind the statement, so we will not endorse it in any way, shape or form", in order to bring it back to the House. Instead, it would discuss the detail, as in a Bill Committee, and report its conclusions. It might suggest a number of changes to the detail, but it is extremely unlikely—to the point of its not happening—that a Select Committee would fundamentally disagree with the concept behind it.
	I therefore have some difficulty with the amendment, which appears to suggest that a member of a Committee could come before the House and say, "No, we don't like the whole idea of the policy," and we would have to debate that and vote.
	The question whether a policy is liked seems to go one stage further back. I would value the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister on what is meant by the relevant provision in the 2008 Act. Sections 9(4) and (5) state that if
	"either House of Parliament makes a resolution with regard to the proposal...The Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a statement setting out the Secretary of State's response to the resolution or recommendations."
	However, if either House of Parliament passed a policy resolution on the proposal, it would not be logical for the Secretary of State simply to lay a statement responding to the resolution, because the resolution would essentially override what the Secretary of State might say about the policy principle behind the planning document being considered by the Select Committee.
	Let me provide an example. I support in principle the National Planning Commission dealing with large infrastructure projects and nationally significant planning proposals. I do so partly because I would like a number of issues relating to the development of renewable and sustainable energy to be dealt with speedily and effectively—with proper consultation and discussion, but without the immense delays that we sometimes encounter. I also accept, however, that the same process could speed up development of nuclear power, which I think is a bad idea for this country's energy policy.
	We should not forget that the purpose of national policy statements is to inform the considerations of the National Planning Commission. If, before the proposals in either of the two examples I have given had reached the point of being scrutinised by a Select Committee or gone through the Infrastructure Planning Commission's planning inquiry process, the House considered a motion stating that either nuclear power or large-scale offshore wind was a bad idea, that would presumably trump or prevent Select Committee discussion of any statement. Indeed, that consideration is more important than requiring the Secretary of State to lay before Parliament a statement setting out his response to the resolution or recommendations.
	The Secretary of State may lay before Parliament a statement on the recommendations of a Select Committee, but if he was laying a response to a resolution that overrode the policy behind the statement, it would be insufficient and inappropriate simply to respond by laying a statement before Parliament. That underlines the hybrid nature of national planning statements. On the one hand, they are a statement of Government policy, but on the other, they are a planning policy guideline—and even if they are a statement of Government policy, they are a statement in the context of a wider palette of policies that can properly be the subject of a resolution before the House to define whether that policy is appropriate. That is an important element in these proceedings. I would be grateful for the Minister's clarification of whether my understanding of the process is accurate.
	Notwithstanding all that, the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) underlines an important point about what happens at the end of a Select Committee's scrutiny. When the Planning Bill was introduced, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government stated:
	"In addition, if the Committee has recommended that a national policy statement raises issues which should be debated by Parliament as a whole, we will make available time in each House for a debate before we designate it."—[ Official Report, 27 November 2007; Vol. 468, c. 14WS.]
	That was a clear commitment, and I should be grateful for, at the very least, a reinstatement of it today. However, I am not sure whether it is sufficient to guarantee debate on the Floor of the House.
	The motion should provide for such debate if a Select Committee reports that an issue requires it, rather than someone perhaps providing time for it. I have complete confidence in the bona fides of my hon. Friend the Minister and, indeed, those of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, but I am not necessarily confident that, for all time, everyone will be in exactly the same position. The motion should be amended to ensure that the process of bringing documentation to the Floor of the House for guaranteed debate is followed through.
	I have concerns about how a substantive vote at the end of that process is to be interpreted, bearing in mind what I said about a resolution. However, today's debate has drawn attention to a lacuna in how the process might reach its logical conclusion. If we can get that right, we shall have a process that deals with how statements are presented to the House and how they interact with the planning process, and that ensures that proper scrutiny and the voice of the House are taken fully into account.

Bob Spink: I apologise for not being present at the start of the debate. As I explained to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, I was engaged in specific business for my constituents.
	The 2008 Act represents all that is wrong with Parliament today. Had it existed years ago when my predecessor, Sir Bernard Braine, was around, he would not have been able to defend the people of Castle Point from dangerous industrial petrochemical operations on Canvey Island. The people of Castle Point feel that the Act removes their democratic rights and protections. To say that they are deeply worried about the removal of their right to be represented in the House, and the right of their Member of Parliament to defend them again, as I certainly would, is an understatement. In fact, they are deeply angry about the Act, which is why I wholeheartedly support the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). We are indebted to him for his efforts.
	There is a school only a few hundred yards from, and indeed some people live only a few hundred yards from, what the Health and Safety Executive described to me in a meeting this week as one of the most potentially dangerous operations in the country. It is a COMAH site—COMAH stands for "control of major accident hazards"—that is operated by Calorgas, which wants massively to intensify its use of the site. The Health and Safety Executive is conducting a criminal investigation into a recent spillage of 163 tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas, which caused an unconfined vapour cloud. Had the cloud met a source of ignition, we would have experienced a Buncefield with bells on—a much greater accident with multiple tank involvement.
	That is why, when planning decisions affect my constituents' lives—decisions that can blight their homes and community and affect their schools—they want to ensure that their representative can stand on the Floor of the House, as Sir Bernard Braine did before me, and defend their interests. That is why I will support the amendment.

Iain Wright: I thank hon. Members for their incisive contributions, and I wish to respond to some of their concerns.
	Essentially, there have been two interlinked themes to the debate. First, there is a wish for reassurance on the relevant period—the time scale for public consultation and, more crucially in this case perhaps, for the House to debate these important matters of national infrastructure. Secondly, there is concern about the role of Divisions, votes and debates as part of the planning consultation process.
	Several Members wanted assurance that the Secretary of State will determine the relevant period in consultation with the Liaison Committee and be prepared to extend it whenever necessary. My hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, South-West (Dr. Starkey), Chair of the Communities and Local Government Committee, asked that the period be not less than six months. The relevant period needs to be long enough to incorporate three important underlying elements: the period of public consultation, which is normally three months; the overhang period of four to six weeks after the close of public consultation during which the relevant Select Committee scrutinising the matter will conclude its report; and the crucial further period of six weeks or 40 days in which the Government would—not might—make time for debate if the Committee recommended that that was warranted. In reality, the relevant period would be about six months, but we did not want the motion to impose a rigid time scale because we think it is important for the Select Committee to have flexibility. That third element that I mentioned is crucial: whether there should be a debate and a vote is decided not by the Government, but by the Select Committee.
	Let me move on to my second point, on debates and holding Ministers and policy to account.

Daniel Rogerson: Before the Minister moves on, may I make a point? He used the word "normally" in his responses on the previous issue. While I very much welcome the proposal for a 40-day period, there is to be no indication to a Secretary of State on what the overall period should be. I see no objection to setting out a minimum period.

Iain Wright: There might be an amendment to a national policy statement, or the matter being considered might be relatively minor, and in those circumstances there would be no benefit in having a rigid six-month policy. The time necessary can be determined by liaison between the relevant Secretary of State, the Select Committee and the Liaison Committee, in accordance with an assessment of the importance of the matter being scrutinised. Through providing such flexibility and ensuring that the Select Committee is in the driving seat, we have demonstrated that we consider parliamentary scrutiny to be vital. We welcome that, we want it and we have introduced the motion to ensure that it happens.
	Several hon. Members made the point that national policy statements are policy statements and that is, of course, correct. As such, national policy statements are the Government's responsibility. It is the job of the House to scrutinise and challenge, and to hold Ministers to account, and the motion permits that. To borrow the vivid words used by my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), the motion allows hon. Members to help to change the Government's mind where that is necessary. None of our proposals would prevent that from happening. Importantly, they provide the flexibility to allow that to happen.

Susan Kramer: Will the Minister give way?

Iain Wright: If the hon. Lady will forgive me, I will not, as I want to move on, and, with the greatest respect, she has not been present for the whole debate.
	Given that the motion provides flexibility and the important opportunity for rigorous challenge of Ministers, it ensures that the House has the utmost ability to scrutinise national policy statements in Parliament. On that basis, I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington to withdraw his amendment, and I commend the motion to the House.
	 Amendment proposed: amendment (a), at end of proposed paragraph (3), insert—
	'(3A) If a committee designated or appointed to consider a proposal for a national policy statement has reported to the House its recommendation that a proposal for a national policy statement should be designated as a national policy statement, and a motion is made by a Minister of the Crown to that effect, the question thereon shall be put not later than one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion.
	(3B) If a committee designated or appointed to consider a proposal for a national policy statement has reported to the House its recommendation that a proposal for a national policy statement should not be designated as a national policy statement, no motion to approve the proposal for a statement shall be made unless the House has previously resolved to disagree with the committee's recommendation; the questions necessary to dispose of proceedings on the motion for such a resolution to disagree shall be put not later than three hours after their commencement; and the question shall be put forthwith on any motion thereafter made by a Minister of the Crown that such a proposal be designated as a national policy statement.
	(3C) Motions to which paragraphs (3A) and (3B) of this Order apply may be proceeded with, though opposed, until any hour.'.— [John McDonnell.]

Question put , That the amendment be made:—
	 The House divided: Ayes 216, Noes 262.

Question accordingly negatived.
	 Main Question put.
	 The House divided: Ayes 265, Noes 212.

Question accordingly agreed to.
	 Order ed,
	That the following new Standing Order and amendments to the Standing Orders be made—
	 A. New Standing Order: Planning: national policy statements
	(1) Whenever a proposal for a national policy statement is laid before this House under section 9(2) of the Planning Act 2008 ('the Act'), the Liaison Committee shall report either—
	(a) that it has designated a select committee appointed under Standing Order No. 152, or
	(b) that it recommends the appointment of a National Policy Statement Committee to consider the proposal.
	(2) A National Policy Statement Committee—
	(a) shall be composed of not fewer than seven nor more than fourteen members, all of whom shall be, at the time of nomination, members of one 15 or more of the following select committees—
	Communities and Local Government
	Energy and Climate Change
	Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
	Transport
	Welsh Affairs;
	(b) shall have power—
	(i) to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, to adjourn from place to place within the UK; and
	(ii) to appoint specialist advisers either to supply information which is not readily available or to elucidate matters of complexity within the committee's order of reference; and
	(c) may report from time to time and shall cease to exist either—
	(i) if it has reported on the proposal before the designated date, when the relevant national policy statement or amended national policy statement has been laid under section 5(9) or section 6(9) of the Act; or
	(ii) if it has not reported on the proposal before the designated date, on the designated date;
	(3) A committee designated or appointed to consider a proposal for a national policy statement shall have power, in the course of its proceedings under this order, to invite Members of the House who are not members of the committee to attend, and, at the discretion of the chairman, take part in, its proceedings, but such Members may not move any motion or amendment to any motion or draft report, nor vote nor be counted in the quorum of the committee;
	(4) If a committee designated or appointed to consider a proposal for a national policy statement has not reported on the proposal before the designated date, then the chairman of the committee shall report that the committee makes no recommendation with regard to the proposal.
	(5) For the purposes of this Order, the designated date in relation to any proposal for a national policy statement is the thirty-ninth day before the expiry of the relevant period defined under section 9(6) of the Act.
	 B. Amendments to Standing Orders
	That Standing Order No. 121 (Nomination of select committees) be amended, by inserting after '(b)' in line 17—
	'(i) in the case of a motion to agree with a report from the Liaison Committee to appoint and nominate Members to a National Policy Statement Committee under Standing Order (Planning: National Policy Statements) the motion is made on behalf of the Liaison Committee by the chairman or another member of the committee; or
	(ii) in other cases';
	That Standing Order No. 145 (Liaison Committee) be amended by leaving out paragraphs (6), (7) and (8) and inserting the following paragraphs—
	(6) The committee shall have power to appoint two sub-committees, one of which shall be a National Policy Statements sub-committee.
	(7) A National Policy Statements sub-committee—
	(a) shall be composed of—
	(i) those members of the committee who are members of the Communities and Local Government, Energy and Climate Change, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Transport and Welsh Affairs Committees; and
	(ii) up to two other members of the committee, one of whom shall be appointed chairman of the sub-committee;
	(b) shall report to the committee on the use of the committee's powers under paragraph (1) of Standing Order (Planning: National Policy Statements); and
	(c) may report to the committee on matters relating to national policy statements under the Planning Act 2008.
	(8) Each sub-committee shall have—
	(a) a quorum of three; and
	(b) power to send for persons, papers and records, to sit notwithstanding any adjournment of the House, and to report to the committee from time to time.
	(9) The committee shall have power to report from time to time the minutes of evidence taken before any sub-committee.
	(10) The quorum of the committee shall be as provided in Standing Order No. 124 (Quorum of select committees), save that for consideration of a report from a National Policy Statements sub-committee under sub-paragraph (7)(b) the quorum shall be three.

Electronic Communications

Jeremy Hunt: I beg to move,
	That the Communications (Television Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations 2009 (S.I., 2009, No. 505), dated 26 February 2009, a copy of which was laid before this House on 9 March, be revoked.
	It is a pleasure to be supported by so many staunch supporters of the BBC on the Conservative Benches.
	The Communications (Television Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations 2009 came into force on 1 April. They increase the cost of a black and white television licence by £1 to £48, which may or may not trouble the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) who, we learned today, has had the same black and white television for 31 years, to his credit. The regulations increase the price of a colour TV licence from £139.50 to £142.50.
	Why have we called this debate over a £3 increase in the licence fee? We have done so partly because of the MP expenses issue that has engulfed the House over the past two weeks. It has shown that the public are justifiably angry about the misuse of their money, whether in small sums or large, which has reminded the House to respect the taxpayers who pay our salaries. The same surely applies to all publicly funded organisations, including the BBC.
	We have called for the debate also partly because the economic situation has changed beyond recognition since January 2007, when the current licence fee settlement was made. With 2.2 million people unemployed and many people facing dire personal financial circumstances, it is surely right to ask whether an increase that may have seemed reasonable in 2007 is still justified.
	We should also put the rise in context. In 1997, the licence fee was £91.50. Since then, it has increased by 56 per cent.—almost double the retail prices index rate of inflation. When the BBC's commercial rivals are struggling, sometimes for their very existence, licence fee payers have been treating the BBC incredibly generously.

Philip Davies: Does my hon. Friend agree that his last point gets to the heart of the matter? Since the licence fee settlement was agreed, broadcasting's economic climate has changed, and it is unsustainable for every other, commercial, broadcaster to manage on less money each year while the BBC has a never-ending increase in its income.

Jeremy Hunt: My hon. Friend does a very good job of developing my argument for me. I shall continue if I may, but he is absolutely right and his point is an important one, because the 2007 settlement was based on some key assumptions about the broadcasting market. The first was about the rate of inflation. That year, RPI inflation was 4.3 per cent., and as hon. Members may recall, that was the year in which the Governor of the Bank of England had to send a letter to the Chancellor, apologising for the fact that he had overshot his target. It was also the year in which there was an assumption that, as the commercial broadcasting market grew, the BBC would need to keep up. Both assumptions must be radically re-examined.
	Yesterday, RPI inflation fell to minus 1.2 per cent., the steepest fall since 1948. That means that programme inflation, the cost of buying and commissioning programmes, is also falling, and with Channel 4's revenues down 18 per cent. and ITV's revenues down 19 per cent. in the first part of this year, there is less competition to buy and commission programmes. The traditional parity between licence fee revenue and the revenue that goes to commercial broadcasters funded by advertising has been lost. Last year, there was a broad equivalence between the two sums of money, but this year it is expected that licence fee revenue will amount to £500 million more than the entire sum received by all the commercial broadcasters funded by advertising put together.

William Cash: On the question of independent producers, is my hon. Friend concerned about the uncompetitive nature of some contracts that the BBC enters into in-house? I believe that such cosy contracts do exist. If producers inside the BBC are being subsidised and independent producers are not able to compete fairly, does not my hon. Friend think that the Public Accounts Committee should have the right to examine the BBC's accounts, as I and the Committee's Chairman, my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Mr. Leigh), have argued for many years?

Jeremy Hunt: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend on that point. I visited some independent production studios in Kent, which made that very point to me, saying that they were unable to compete for contracts to produce BBC programmes because they were outbid by the BBC's in-house production facilities, which the independents believed were less competitive than they were. There are problems, and I wholeheartedly agree that the National Audit Office should be able to examine the BBC's accounts at will and without permission and prior agreement, just as it can with most other public bodies. That is a very important point.

David Cairns: Before the previous intervention, the hon. Gentleman made the entirely accurate point that the advertising slump has seen a huge chunk of money taken out of ITV's revenue and therefore out of commercial production. However, there seems to be an odd logic in saying that ITV's losing £500 million is a pretext to take tens of millions of pounds out of the BBC's budget. If we are losing hundreds of millions of pounds from production because of the advertising slump, is it not true that now is not the time to cut the licence fee?

Jeremy Hunt: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that the only way to deal with the commercial predicament faced by ITV, Channel 4 and all the other commercial broadcasters is to pump more money into the BBC through the licence fee? ITV says that, next year, the disparity between advertising-funded broadcasters and the BBC will be £1 billion. There comes a point when commercially funded broadcasters are simply not able to compete with the BBC in producing programmes for large audiences. When the BBC's commercial rivals can spend less on programming and when the BBC's own costs are falling, we have to ask whether it is appropriate for the corporation to have an inflation-busting £68 million rise.

David Cairns: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who has been generous in giving way. I would understand the logic of his position if he wanted to take money from the BBC licence fee and give it to ITV; his argument would then make perfect sense. But he does not propose to do that. He is remarking that hundreds of millions of pounds have been taken out of broadcasting because of the advertising slump and saying that we should therefore take another £75 million from the BBC. I fail completely to see the logic of that position.

Jeremy Hunt: The hon. Gentleman does not appreciate the logic of my argument. If there is a huge disparity between the money that commercially funded broadcasters receive and what the BBC receives, that is dangerous for the broadcasting ecology, which becomes very unbalanced.

Anne Begg: I should like to pick up the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Inverclyde (David Cairns). The hon. Gentleman has said that he has spoken to independent producers who cannot get their programmes on the BBC because of unfair competition within the corporation. However, despite the quotas that the BBC already has, if more money is taken from the corporation there will be less chance of getting more independent production into the BBC. The hon. Gentleman is arguing against his own case.

Jeremy Hunt: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her intervention. We are talking about a £68 million rise in the licence fee in the context of a total licence fee income of £3.6 billion. I do not believe that it would be impossible for the BBC to find savings of £68 million without its ability to commission programmes from the independent sector being affected in any way.

Barry Sheerman: In Yorkshire, we have just discovered that ITV is closing down "Heartbeat", "A Touch of Frost" and "Sharpe"—excellent productions that attract high-volume audiences. I do not know what we are going to do about that, and it is not the BBC's responsibility. At the same time, the BBC is investing, certainly in the north-west. For the sake of creative talent, surely this is not the time to start cutting back on funding for the BBC.

Jeremy Hunt: It is excellent that the BBC is investing in our regions. However, we also have to consider whether it is giving value for money; £3.6 billion is a lot of money. I shall go on to talk about some of the things on which it spends the money—things that I think do not represent good value for money. At a time of great economic difficulty for many licence fee payers, it is legitimate to ask whether the money is being well spent.

John Redwood: Does my hon. Friend agree that when a lot of public money is taken in small sums from people without much to spend—and under threat of imprisonment if they do not pay—it is important that costs should be controlled? It is not like the private sector; I do not mind people earning a lot of money if others pay willingly for their services. Should not the BBC look at all its people who are paid very much more than the Prime Minister, many of them with the opportunity to earn outside the BBC as well? I do not begrudge them doing that, but should we not at least control their BBC wages?

Jeremy Hunt: My right hon. Friend makes an important point. In fact, 50 people at the BBC are paid more than the Prime Minister. I thought that his point about taking care with small sums of money from people who might well not be able to afford an additional rise would be well taken by Labour Members, particularly as the Leader of the House announced today that the licence fee will not be eligible for the additional costs allowance. If any MPs were wavering on this issue, that should completely persuade them to support the motion.
	We have had a week when many have questioned the very roots of our democracy, and there is a democratic issue at stake in this context too. A free society needs multiple and varied media sources. However excellent the BBC is—I believe that much of what it produces is world class and a credit to the UK—other broadcasters need to be able to flourish as well, and different voices need to be able to be heard, because that is how we provide choice for consumers and engagement for citizens. Conservative Members have always recognised the importance of plurality of provision. It was Conservative Governments who licensed ITV in 1955 and Channel 4 in 1982, unleashed the satellite and cable revolutions of the 1980s, and licensed Channel 5 in 1997.
	What has the BBC done when faced with all this competition? It has flourished. It is completely false to say that there is a choice between competition and quality. It is because British public service broadcasting is the most competitive in the world that many people think that it is of the highest quality in the world. In order for that to continue, there must be a sensible balance between the revenue that commercial broadcasters are able to raise and what the BBC gets, and many will ask whether that is possible if there is a £1 billion gap between state-funded broadcasters and the rest.

Paul Farrelly: The point about the current impact on production has been well made by my hon. Friends. The BBC is also clearly playing a vital role in digital switchover. Its business plan has been well developed following a settlement in 2007 that was much below what it wanted. The hon. Gentleman's proposals could destabilise that business plan. In the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, we examine the BBC all the time. I am sure that no member of the Committee would like to pre-empt the conclusions of a possible future inquiry. Nevertheless, we have considered top-slicing and recommended it in relation to Channel 4, and encouraged the BBC not to draw down the whole of the licence fee, and no member of the Committee has endorsed any such proposals as the hon. Gentleman's.  [ Interruption. ]

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. The time for this debate is very limited and several Back Benchers wish to make contributions. I therefore hope that any interventions will be brief.

Jeremy Hunt: The hon. Gentleman talks about so-called disruption to the BBC's business plan. Businesses up and down this country are facing disruption to their business plans caused by a very severe economic recession. If they are able to cope with that, the BBC should be able to do so as well.

Stewart Jackson: Does my hon. Friend agree that not only the broadcast media are suffering from inappropriate incursion as a result of the year-on-year funding of the BBC? A few weeks ago, we had local newspaper week. The efforts of Members across the whole House defeated proposals for a local video internet site that would have put many local newspapers out of business. Does he, too, find that a matter of grave concern?

Jeremy Hunt: I absolutely do. My hon. Friend is making exactly the same point as I am about the importance of plurality of provision in the media and the need for multiple sources.
	I want to deal with a couple of things that the Government may say in opposing the motion. First, they may say that the BBC is already making cuts. It is true that it is halfway through a £1.9 billion efficiency programme, some of which involves redundancies, but they are not cuts because no money is being returned to licence fee payers—it is being reallocated to other services. The Government may say that we are attacking the principle of six-yearly settlements, so let me scotch that. We support the idea of multi-year settlements because it is important to protect the editorial independence of the BBC. The BBC must be impartial. It should not be subject to the political weather, but it should respond to the economic climate, and that is what this debate is about.

Evan Harris: With regard to the Jonathan Ross-Russell Brand incident—I make no defence of that escapade—will the hon. Gentleman confirm that his proposal is in no way a means of punishing the BBC for testing the boundaries of taste, as with "Jerry Springer: The Opera", and that it is vital that the BBC should perceive no threat from politicians about its willingness to take chances in the creative industries even if it sometimes gets it wrong?

Jeremy Hunt: I support creative risk taking, but socially responsible broadcasters should behave in a socially responsible way, and that was a lapse of taste and standards about which the BBC should have known better.
	The events of the past two weeks have been grim for Westminster. We have learned the hard way what happens when one loses the trust of the public. That has happened partly because this place has received a level of scrutiny way beyond anything experienced by the BBC. The BBC, too, needs to maintain its bond of trust with the British people, which means understanding that when times are tough, it should not just pocket the money allocated to it in happier times. It should listen to people's concerns and respond to the changed economic circumstances of 2009. Waiving this year's 3 per cent. licence fee rise would do just that, and I urge wiser heads at the BBC, in the Government and in the House to respond accordingly.

Andy Burnham: I begin with two points of solid agreement, I think, between the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) and myself. I believe that unlike some of his colleagues, he cares about the BBC and supports the principle of the licence fee. There is a Back-Bench Bill doing the rounds of the Opposition Benches calling for the abolition of the licence fee, which is red meat for some of his more right-wing colleagues, at least five of whom support it. However, I genuinely do not believe that he is in that camp. Also, we agree that Parliament has a responsibility to licence fee payers to ensure that the BBC is adequately funded but never over-funded.
	We must always strike a balance between playing fair by the BBC, giving it sufficient funding and stability to fulfil its charter purposes, and playing fair by the licence fee payer, ensuring that the licence is both good value and affordable and taking account of the prevailing economic circumstances.

William Cash: Did the Secretary of State hear a fascinating item on the "Today" programme this morning in which Sarah Montague asked the chairman of the BBC Trust some extremely relevant questions about the BBC's pay, allowances and expenses and the rest? Did he hear the chairman's replies, and what did he think about them?

Andy Burnham: I did hear the chairman's replies, and I thought he made some very sensible and solid points. I also heard the shadow Secretary of State on the "Today" programme supporting his motion and calling for cuts. I then picked up my  Racing Post only a few moments later and read, "Shadow Secretary backs BBC racing campaign." He stated:
	"Because I cover not just sport, but also the media, this is an issue I will be taking up with the BBC to make sure that they give this really important industry the support that it needs."
	I had to pinch myself—it was as though he were saying one thing to the  Racing Post and quite another on the "Today" programme. He was saying to the former, "More money for BBC racing." It was quite astonishing.

Jeremy Hunt: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Andy Burnham: I will, but I hope the hon. Gentleman has a good answer.

Jeremy Hunt: I just wanted to ask the Secretary of State whether he thinks licence fee payers' money is better spent supporting the racing industry or supporting a £14 million taxi bill or a £15 million flying bill.

Andy Burnham: I was not making that point. I was hoping that the hon. Gentleman would have the good grace to say that he was calling for the BBC to spend more on racing on the self-same day he was on the radio calling for a 2 per cent. cut across the corporation. If he does not see any inconsistency or unfortunate timing there, I am sure others will.

Roger Gale: I might be able to help the Secretary of State. The reason why the BBC is having such problems is that its remit has grown like Topsy, way beyond anything in the charter. It has to learn to cut its coat according to its cloth like everybody else. There is a limit to how much we can allow the BBC to expand, and it has gone beyond that limit.

Andy Burnham: I take it that support for racing is off the agenda if the hon. Gentleman has his way. Hon. Members are entitled to their views, but I happen to believe that the BBC gives good value. I well remember that, a few years ago, Opposition Members and others said that the BBC should not invest in online and new media services. However, today the BBC website is an important resource for people throughout the country, providing accurate information about activities and events in this place and beyond.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Andy Burnham: I will make progress before giving way.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Tessa Jowell), the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, struck precisely that careful balance between the interests of the BBC and those of licence fee payers when she set out to the House the current six-year settlement—annual nominal increases in the licence fee of 3 per cent. for the first two years; 2 per cent. in years 3, 4 and 5, and between 0 per cent. and 2 per cent. in the final year.
	In the first two years—2007-08 and 2008-09—the licence fee increased by 3 per cent. Let me remind the House that the retail prices index was 4.3 per cent. and the consumer prices index was 2.3 per cent. in 2007. In 2008, RPI was 4 per cent. and CPI was 3.6 per cent. For the past two years, the BBC's funding increases have, on the whole, been below the prevailing rate of inflation. That is an important context for today's debate.
	On the logic of the motion that the shadow Secretary of State and the Leader of the Opposition have tabled, we might have expected a bid to uprate the BBC's position in the past two years, but I do not recall any clamour to do that. It is right not to clamour, because it is not sensible to look at any one year in isolation. However, the motion effectively asks us to do that.

Pete Wishart: What does the Secretary of State say to Scottish licence fee payers, who face the increases although BBC commissions in Scotland come nowhere close to a population share?

Andy Burnham: I have visited Pacific Quay in Glasgow a few times. It is a major investment by the BBC, at the heart of a developing creative sector in that part of the city. There are clear commitments, which I will outline, about increasing programme spend in Scotland. However, the motion would jeopardise that.

Barry Sheerman: I believe Labour Members share my view that the BBC is a fantastic organisation, and we will not vote for the motion. However, we are not pushovers, and when we see some of the current affairs coverage, which slavishly follows the print media rather than setting the news agenda, we get a little unhappy.

Andy Burnham: I am aware that colleagues in all parties are concerned about aspects of what the BBC does, and it is right and proper that they should present those concerns today. It is also right for the BBC to acknowledge and respond to public concerns. However, I agree with my hon. Friend's overall point—the BBC remains good value for money, and enhances our democracy and life in this country.

Philip Davies: rose—

Mark Pritchard: rose—

Andy Burnham: I will make some progress now, but I shall give way to both hon. Members before I finish speaking.
	Today we are debating a 2 per cent. increase for the BBC. I recognise our responsibility to licence fee payers, particularly in these difficult times. However, the interests of licence fee payers do not revolve solely around cost. The quality of what they receive in return is also crucial. Overall, the BBC remains good value for money, although, as has been said, on some matters it needs to respond to changing public moods and changing times.
	We need to take care, however, not to damage or destabilise one of the great British institutions, which is respected and revered around the world. I therefore profoundly disagree with the premise of the debate that the Leader of the Opposition has initiated today. His position is wrong in principle and in practice.
	First, let me deal with principle. Let us be clear: the Conservative party today challenges the basis on which the BBC has been funded for decades. Multi-year funding deals are important, not only for the planning stability that they bring, but because they protect editorial independence and act as a bulwark against undue political interference.
	The Leader of the Opposition said that his party
	"would freeze the BBC licence fee for one year,"
	and that it
	"needs to be looked at year-on-year...we would freeze it this year, review it in future years."
	Let us make no mistake: the uncertainty that that would create would be disastrous for the BBC and, ultimately, for licence fee payers. Instigating annual funding settlements would fundamentally alter the BBC's character, independence and impartiality, its relationship to Parliament and its role in public life. Would any Government be properly challenged by the BBC when the corporation's fate was always under review and the corporation was engaged in almost never-ending debate with civil servants and Ministers about its funding?

Jeremy Hunt: rose—

Andy Burnham: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, and I hope that he has a good answer to that point.

Jeremy Hunt: Let me make it absolutely clear that the Secretary of State is distorting what the Leader of Opposition said. He did not say that we should move to annual settlements for the BBC, and that is not our party's position, as the Secretary of State knows perfectly well. The current settlement, which started in 2007, is a six-year settlement, but the amount by which it will rise in the sixth year is to be determined at a later date. If it is so important not to settle the licence fee every year, even though it is possible to determine the amount received in the sixth year at a later date, why, given the extraordinary economic circumstances of the past six months, is it not sensible to review the position in the third year as well?

Barry Sheerman: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The hon. Gentleman has made an extensive speech in the very short time available to us, and yet back he comes with an intervention that is longer than most speeches.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I have already made a plea to hon. Members to be brief with their interventions. The intervention was on a point of debate. The shadow Secretary of State was challenged and I gave him the opportunity to respond.

Andy Burnham: I get on well with the hon. Member for South-West Surrey, but I take great exception to his saying that I am distorting a comment made by the Leader of the Opposition, so I shall read it again. The Leader of the Opposition said that the licence fee
	"needs to be looked at year-on-year".
	Could the hon. Gentleman please tell me what I am distorting? That is the stated policy—year-on-year review of the licence fee—and he cannot wriggle out of it because he does not like the implications of such a statement for the BBC.
	Sometimes, the old way of doing things should be swept away, as we have seen in recent days, and rightly so. But sometimes, the old ways have merit and should be kept. I thought the Conservative party understood that.

Mark Pritchard: I would like to declare an interest: I am a supporter of some parts of the BBC. Talking about old ways, does the Secretary of State agree that, to help his justification of the case for increasing the licence fee, it would be helpful if the BBC followed this Parliament in opening up its books, in particular that on the salaries of all its staff? Its staff are paid by the taxpayer, like every hon. Member in this place, so is it not about time that the BBC followed the lead of this Parliament and opened up its books to transparency and openness?

Andy Burnham: Perhaps I should have made the point to the hon. Member for South-West Surrey a moment ago that the chairman of the BBC Trust commented on that earlier today and said there had been a move towards greater transparency in recent times. However, I do not believe that the hon. Gentleman publishes all the salaries of his staff, and it is not necessarily right just to say that everything should be in the public domain. Let us have appropriate transparency and accountability. I do not necessarily disagree in principle, but let us ensure that things are done appropriately.

Paul Farrelly: It is important that the BBC does not get too big for its boots—indeed, the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport was recently critical of BBC Worldwide. The demands on the BBC are growing with, for instance, the current discussions about Channel 4's funding gap. What would be the effect on sensible business negotiations if the BBC's settlement was simply ripped up in the way proposed?

Andy Burnham: My hon. Friend makes a powerful point and I will deal with precisely that issue now. I said that the Conservatives were wrong in principle, but they are wrong in practice, too. As well as causing a loss of independence, annual funding would take away the stability and certainty that a broadcaster needs to operate successfully. The BBC would lose its capacity to plan for the long term, commission the highest quality content and invest in the technologies of the future, such as the iPlayer, which so many of us benefit from and enjoy.

Graham Stuart: Will the Secretary of State give way?

Andy Burnham: I must make progress.
	More specifically, the cuts that the hon. Member for South-West Surrey is today calling for could have the direct effect of damaging programme making, draining funding from the creative economy at a time when other revenue sources are drying up and undermining the successful delivery of projects of importance to the future of this country.
	Let me remind the House that, within the funding settlement agreed in 2007, the BBC has already made major efficiencies and is mid-way through a programme to save a total of £1.9 billion during the current licence fee period via an annual efficiency target of 3 per cent. Pay and bonuses for senior managers have been frozen for 18 months. Posts have been reduced by 7,200 since 2005, and there are a further 1,200 to go as part of further savings.
	Alongside this, the BBC was charged with delivering changes of critical importance. First, out of funds in the six-year settlement, it was asked to play a crucial role in the national digital switchover project by providing practical help, through the help scheme, to ensure that the most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our community can make the switch.
	Secondly, over the next two years, the BBC is relocating 2,500 staff to MediaCity in Salford, helping to form the first purpose-built media community in the UK, and permanently rebalancing media power in this country away from the capital and into the regions. This will bring huge benefits to the economy in the north-west, estimated at £1.5 billion and 15,500 jobs.
	Two further asks of the BBC have emerged since the current licence fee was settled. In response to calls from colleagues in this House, the BBC Trust has committed the BBC to making significant increases in its programme making in Scotland and Wales so that, by 2016, 50 per cent. of network productions will be made outside London.

David Cairns: My right hon. Friend is a great champion of broadcasting in the nations and regions. He has already mentioned the £182 million studio at Pacific Quay in Glasgow, the finest studio of its type in Europe. Is he aware that the BBC is responsible for 85 per cent. of all TV production across the whole of Scotland, and that original production from Scotland for the networks is increasing after years of going down? Would he like to speculate on the impact that a big cut in the licence fee would have on the progress that we have seen over the past couple of years?

Andy Burnham: My hon. Friend makes an important point. Having visited a couple of times, I know that there is a developing, but quite fragile, creative economy in that part of Scotland. There is a tendency to claim that this is all about bloated BBC pay and executives, but a point that is often missed is that much of the money goes to independent producers and small start-up creative businesses in Scotland, as my hon. Friend and I saw when we visited. That is a crucial source of funding that would be severely missed if it were to be reined in.
	A further ask has emerged since the licence fee settlement was reached, and it is perhaps the most important of all. The media industry has changed profoundly during that time and continues to change at great speed. As a result, and as I have said before, it is vital that the BBC step forward to play a bigger role as a partner and an enabler of other public service content, and I welcome the moves it has made in this direction. This is firmly in the public interest, as it helps to sustain programmes that the public value. According to the hon. Member for South-West Surrey's logic, if commercial TV is shrinking, the BBC must shrink too. My argument is that the BBC should put a helping hand under other parts of the system that are struggling, so as to maintain the content that the public enjoy, value and depend on. That is the fundamental misunderstanding in his remarks today.

Graham Stuart: rose—

William Cash: rose—

Andy Burnham: I have given way to the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) once already, and I want to make some progress. I will give way to some of his hon. Friends before I finish.
	All four of these major undertakings—digital switchover, the move to Salford, programmes in the nations, and the BBC as partner—would be destabilised by this ill-conceived Tory attack. At a time when our commercial broadcasters are facing economic difficulties, this work only serves to underline the importance of a properly funded BBC as the backbone of our creative economy and the cornerstone of public service broadcasting. Two months ago, we saw a prime example of this with the memorandum of understanding between the BBC and ITV plc to enter into news gathering and production partnerships that will deliver cost savings rising to an estimated £7 million by 2016 in the provision of regional news in England and Wales on ITV.

John Redwood: The Secretary of State says that the BBC makes provision for the nations and regions, but when will he and the BBC understand that England is a country and that it wishes to be recognised?

David Cairns: What country does he think Salford is in?

Andy Burnham: I do not know how often the right hon. Gentleman travels north of Watford, but I can tell him that Salford, which is most certainly in England, is about to benefit from a major investment in the creative economy of the north-west. If the right hon. Gentleman paid us in the north a visit once or twice, he might learn something.

John Redwood: The right hon. Gentleman is deliberately misconstruing what I said. The point is that in its content and production the BBC does not recognise England; it balkanises us into regions, which people do not like.

Andy Burnham: The right hon. Gentleman has made his point and there is no need to reply to it. I shall begin to conclude my remarks.
	In recent years, we have seen how central the BBC is to this country's global prominence in innovation in the creative sector. The iPlayer has been a phenomenal success—one that we need to see replicated and its benefits shared across the creative sector as a whole. We cannot expect the BBC to play that role unless it has stability and certainty at its core.

Graham Stuart: I am extremely grateful to the Secretary of State, who is being most kind in finally giving way to me. He keeps saying that the BBC must have certainty in order to develop its offerings for the future, but I put it to him that the commercial sector—whether it be publishing, which competes, or broadcasting—has to make do with the income that comes its way. It is coping with greatly reduced incomes at the moment, yet it sees the BBC being given absolute guarantees, which is a monopoly being solidified. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) is right to suggest that the BBC should share the pain with the rest of the British economy.

Andy Burnham: The BBC fulfils a different role; it is not a commercial broadcaster. It is there to provide content that the commercial sector would not provide. It is there to invest in new and emerging talent and to take risks on different types of content. It is there to provide local radio of a depth and quality that the commercial sector could never reach.

Graham Stuart: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I apologise for failing to declare an interest. As a director and shareholder in a publishing company, I feel that it would be right for me to do so.

Madam Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman's comments will now be on the record.

Andy Burnham: I am glad they are.
	To conclude, let us be clear what today's debate is about. It is about posturing and getting easy and cheap headlines for the Conservative party. It is traditional BBC bashing—yes, it may have been done with a light touch, a smile and no tie, but it is BBC bashing none the less.

Jeremy Hunt: rose—

Graham Stuart: rose—

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. It is obvious that the Secretary of State is no longer prepared to give way.

Andy Burnham: When in January 2007, my right hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood introduced the BBC settlement that we are debating today, she introduced a fair, realistic and well thought through settlement. She did so in order to provide a platform of stability and strength in a period of flux and change, and she did so on the basis of the best possible combination of independent advice, high-quality research and public debate. It was a settlement with a vision for the future of the BBC and its role. Now is not the time to rip up that settlement or to be thinking of taking money out of the system and risk destabilising not just the BBC, but our creative sector as a whole.

Jeremy Hunt: rose—

Andy Burnham: I will give way one last time, but then I am going to finish.

Jeremy Hunt: The Secretary of State described our motion as an ill-conceived Tory attack, so can he tell me why early-day motion 1047, which asks for a freeze in the licence fee, was signed by more hon. Members from his own party than by Conservative Members?

Andy Burnham: The hon. Gentleman has brought a motion before the House today and he is asking us to vote on the licence fee. He is a member of the Tory Front-Bench team, so he represents Conservative party policy. I suggest that when a Conservative Front-Bench Member brings such a motion before the House, it indicates to those outside precisely how he and his Front-Bench colleagues think. I say again that this is an attack on the BBC led by the Leader of the Opposition, and which the hon. Gentleman has had to carry out today. I can see his discomfort in having to do so.
	The licence fee is an investment in Britain's digital future. It is bringing jobs to the north-west, programme making to the regions and nations, and building our digital infrastructure. It is the prime source of investment in one of Britain's abiding strengths—our creativity. Given a choice of investment or cuts, we know where the Tory party usually stands. I urge the House to vote against the motion.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. Mr. Speaker imposed a 12-minute limit on Back-Bench speeches. So that I can—I hope—accommodate everyone who wishes to speak, I shall now reduce the limit to seven minutes.

Don Foster: For once, I am delighted to follow the Secretary of State.
	In my view, the Tory proposal is a dangerous, badly timed and, frankly, pathetic gimmick. Although, as the Secretary of State has said, the BBC is rightly the envy of the world, the whole House would acknowledge that it does not always get it right. I have been very critical of a number of its actions, which in recent times have included the aggressive approach to licence fee collection, the slow reaction of management over the Ross-Brand affair, the phone-in scandals, the excessive expenditure on taxis, aeroplanes and even Christmas parties, and the over-the-top payments to some presenters and so-called top talent. Despite that, however, I value the BBC and I value the values for which it stands.
	Introducing the debate, the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) said that it had come at a time when there was a huge debate about trust in politicians. He is right, but let me remind him that trust in the BBC has never been greater. A recent poll by the BBC Trust showed that 85 per cent. of the British people support the BBC, up from 70 per cent. two years ago. I think that we obtain phenomenally good value from the BBC. For 39p a day, licence-holding households receive 10 TV channels, some with high definition, 10 UK-wide radio stations, 46 national and regional radio services, interactive services on BBCi, the huge benefits of the iPlayer and, in bbc.co.uk, a website that gets 17.5 million unique hits every week. I think that that is pretty good value for money. The BBC also provides high-quality, UK-produced, impartial broadcast content. I believe that it is vital to our democracy, to our sense of national identity, and to the success of our creative industries.
	Last night, in an interesting and somewhat provocative speech, the chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons, argued that the way in which people think about the BBC is different from the way in which they think about commodities. The hon. Gentleman's approach seems to be that they just think about commodities, but they do not. As Sir Michael said, the British people see themselves as shareholders in the BBC, and therefore have a vested interest in its long-term future. The Tory proposal ignores that relationship, and crucially—as the Secretary of State said—it ignores the vital independence of the BBC from Government.
	As we have heard, the planned increase is part of a six-year settlement. Not only is the length of that settlement critical to the BBC's ability to plan ahead, but it underpins the BBC's editorial independence. Voting against the order and for the Tory proposal would set a dangerous precedent whereby the licence fee settlement could be redrawn each year, year on year—as the Tories' leader has said—according to political whim. It would represent a fundamental and undesirable shift in the relationship between the BBC and Parliament. In short, the motion is highly dangerous, and prompts the question "Will the BBC, and especially its independence, be safe in Conservative hands?"
	It is no wonder that, on Monday this week,  The Guardian quoted an unnamed Tory source as saying:
	"This could be the first meaningful salvo in what could be an explosive battle between a Conservative government and the BBC."
	In the same article, the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), the Chairman of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, is quoted as saying that today's vote would "send a message" to the BBC. I look forward to hearing what message he thinks it will send.

Jeremy Hunt: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why, if the Tory proposal is so dangerous, two members of his party's Front Bench supported early-day motion 1047? It asks for a freeze in the licence fee, which is exactly what we are asking for today.

Don Foster: I suspect that we shall have to see whether, after those two hon. Members have read the  Hansard report of the debate, their names remain attached to the early-day motion. However, I hope that I may be able to persuade the hon. Gentleman.
	The hon. Gentleman thinks he has scored a point, but let us address what he has said. He has said that his proposal represents a £68 million cut in the BBC budget. I hope he will stand up and intervene on me to explain where that figure of £68 million comes from, because I have had it checked by the BBC finance department. It says that if it is a one-off cut, it will actually be £75 million, but, unless he is proposing that in subsequent years there be a way above inflation-busting increase to get the BBC back on track, the cumulative impact of his proposal will actually be a cut of £325 million.

Jeremy Hunt: The hon. Gentleman asks me to suggest ways in which that £68 million can be found. We have talked about the taxi bill. What about the £108 million spent on imported programming, much of which could be viewed on the commercial channels if it was not being shown on the BBC?

Don Foster: I wish I had not given way to the hon. Gentleman because I asked him a clear question: where does his figure of £68 million come from, as it is incorrectly calculated? A one-off cut would be £75 million, and carried through to the end of the licence period the cut would amount to £325 million. A cut of that magnitude must be considered in the context of what is happening within the BBC. The Secretary of State has already referred to that, but we must recall that, since 2001, the BBC has already made cumulative savings of £2.2 billion, 7,200 posts have gone since 2005, and it already has plans in place for a further 15 per cent. of efficiency savings amounting to a cut of £1.9 billion by the end of the licence period, during which a further 1,200 posts will go. We also already know that pay and bonuses for senior managers have been frozen for 18 months, licence fee collection costs have been reduced by £32 million, and spending on top talent has been reduced—and the list goes on.
	The hon. Gentleman said, however, that the BBC has to do what all other businesses have to do: cope with the impact of the recession. Because he has done his research, he should be aware that, in addition to all the planned cuts, the BBC now has to cope with a reduction in anticipated income because the number of new households is lower than was expected so there will be fewer new licences and because the money it will get from the sale of property in White City has massively reduced as a result of the impact of the recession on the property market. Those factors combined mean that the BBC has to find a further £400 million in cuts because of the recession.
	The idea that the BBC is swimming in cash and can make additional savings at the drop of a hat is, therefore, out of date. It is unprepared for the retrospective cut that the Tories are asking for. The Tories have to say which services should be cut, too: local radio services, or the children's channel, or the parliamentary channel, or a national radio station or two? Perhaps still more importantly, what damage would the cut do to the creative industries?

William Cash: rose—

Don Foster: I will give way to the hon. Gentleman shortly, if he wishes to intervene then. We know that the BBC's activities put £5 billion per annum into the creative industries. It has already been pointed out that the other broadcasters are reducing their expenditure. If there is a further BBC cut, that will have a direct impact on the creative economy.
	This is a dangerous proposal that would undermine the independence of the BBC and that would, by failing to take into account recent and planned efficiency savings, put programmes and services at risk. It is also badly timed. This is a retrospective cut, and no mention has been made of the cost that would be incurred in implementing it retrospectively. Again, I have received advice, and I have been told it would be in the order of £4.3 million.
	Finally, this really is pathetic, because if all the Tories can do in this recession is offer to each household in the land the princely sum of £3—less than 1p a day—people will see through that for what it is. The public do not want the BBC to be damaged or its independence to be threatened, and they will see this as a cheap gimmick. By using the BBC as a political football, the Tories have scored an own goal. It is absolutely clear that the BBC will not be safe in Conservative hands.

John Grogan: I have not signed the early-day motion in question, and I rise briefly to support the Government and oppose the Opposition motion. First, I wish to deal with the argument made by the Conservative Front-Bench team that advertising has declined for commercial broadcasters and thus, by implication, that the BBC is becoming too dominant in the market. It is important to be accurate with the figures. The amount of the licence fee money that is spent on BBC television programmes is about £2.5 billion, which is roughly what will be raised this year by the traditional terrestrial commercial broadcasters in advertising income—the ratio is about 50:50; the BBC's figure could be a little higher than that of commercial broadcasters, or vice versa. Obviously, the BBC does not spend all its licence fee income on television, because it supports radio and online services too.
	That argument from the Conservatives seemed to me to belong to 20 or 25 years ago, because it completely neglected the fact that a great deal of broadcasting income these days comes from subscription TV. I believe that BSkyB has a subscription income of about £3.7 billion, and the figure for Virgin—Richard Branson's company—is about £600 million, so a total subscription income of well over £4 billion, in addition to the advertising income for commercial broadcasting, has to be considered. The BBC is a much smaller player than it was 10 or 20 years ago, and it is not in any danger of becoming dominant in the market. Indeed, 10 years ago, people were fearful as to whether the BBC would have relevance, given that competition. As Front Benchers have recognised, the BBC has responded well to that competition: BBC 1 remains the most watched TV channel in the nation; BBC radio still attracts about 50 per cent. of the radio listenership throughout the country; and BBC Online is looked at by at least half the population on a regular basis.
	There are two reasons why it is important that the BBC's licence fee is determined over a long period, not a short one—they have been mentioned but they are worth repeating even though they are both matters of common sense. I hope that in the coming days, or perhaps later today, the official Opposition will clarify whether they seek an annual review of the BBC's licence fee, as some of their Back Benchers—

Jeremy Hunt: indicated dissent.

John Grogan: I am encouraged by some of the gestures coming from those on the Opposition Front Bench suggesting that that is not the case, because it would be a big worry if it were.
	There are two reasons why the BBC needs long-term funding, the first of which relates to its independence, which should not be taken for granted. It has been established over 80 years of BBC history and, as the Secretary of State said, it would be problem if the BBC director-general had to troop into the Treasury on an annual basis and, depending on what the controversy of the moment was, had to speak in the press, tailor his argument and so on. Would Jeremy Paxman be quite so aggressive to us all and would the "Today" programme be quite so pressing of the day's issues if that were the situation? Over time, what would happen to that independence? It should be valued—there is no point in having the BBC and in having the licence fee if that independence is not preserved—because it is crucial, not only to news coverage, but to the BBC's entire output.

John Whittingdale: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that in the run-up to the previous BBC settlement, the BBC was, in some way, restrained in its criticism of the Government? I do not believe that his Front-Bench team would feel that that was the case at the time of Hutton.

John Grogan: This is a question of balance, and of whether we should have the review once every six or seven years, or once a year. An annual review would clearly mean that the process is ongoing; there would never be a time when the BBC licence fee would not be under debate. We should be talking about relatively short periods, when the charter is reviewed, whereby we decide whether we want the BBC to continue or not, then decide what the licence fee should be and then let the BBC get on with doing its job.
	We rightly make huge demands of the BBC, because of its privilege in getting the licence fee. Some of those have been mentioned, and they concern not only top quality content or maintaining standards. When the BBC falls short of those standards, it causes controversy because of the affection in which it is held. The demands also relate to how in this licence fee settlement, as has been said, we are asking the BBC to engage as never before with the nations and—as the right hon. Member for Wokingham (Mr. Redwood) has left, I believe that I can say this—with the regions of England too. The BBC is doing that in an unprecedented way. A third of BBC output will come from the regions by 2016, whereas only a quarter does so now. In Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, the figure will triple to some 17 or 18 per cent. of output. The partnerships that we are rightly demanding of the BBC—to advance digital radio, to preserve regional news and to get involved in all sorts of technological developments—mean that we have to ensure that it has a predictable income.
	The last settlement was quite tough, and it has fallen below inflation for the last couple of years, as the Secretary of State said. The BBC has to cut its cloth according to its means, but it must have predictability.
	This debate is a key indicator of the attitude of a future Conservative Government—should that ever come about—to many issues. Like the Secretary of State, on broadcasting I trust the instincts of the Conservative Front Bench and the Leader of the Opposition, who has often said that he admires the BBC as a great British institution, but those sentiments are clearly not shared by all Conservative Members.
	Interestingly, it is not only on this issue that red meat is being offered. For example, I understand that it is now Conservative policy to get rid of the traditional British rule that television news should be impartial. We might end up with a domestic version of Fox News, and that would be a big change. If that were combined with calling in the director-general of the BBC once a year—I am glad that the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman has confirmed that that is not the plan, and I hope that it remains the case—broadcasting in this nation, which is valued by many people, could be under threat. That would affect not only the BBC, but commercial public service broadcasters and it would be to the detriment of the nation.
	I hope that the House will endorse the current BBC licence fee and back the tremendous plans for production in the regions, top quality content and the development of new technology to which the BBC is committed.

John Whittingdale: I warmly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) on initiating this debate on the licence fee. If ever there was a time when it was right to ask again whether the licence fee should continue to increase, it is now. My hon. Friend set out some of the background to the increase in the fee against the rate of inflation, but the BBC's income is determined not just by the level of the licence fee, but the number of households that pay it, which also has been going up. As a result, the BBC has enjoyed perpetual income increases, year on year, at a time when the rest of the media sector is facing its worst crisis for 50 years.
	The media are affected by the recession in the same way as every other industry. As many people who have been in business will know, one of the first casualties in a recession is advertising spend, and there has been a significant drop in advertising expenditure across the board. On top of that, we are seeing a fundamental structural change in people's consumption of media. More and more people consume media online, and as they move from traditional media outlets advertisers are following them. The result is that every commercial operator is under greater pressure than ever before. ITV has moved from children's programming and regional programming, and it has now pulled out of arts programming with the ending of "The South Bank Show". It has also cut drama. Channel 4 has identified a £150 million gap in its funding. Channel 5 is struggling to survive. Every commercial radio station is now considering its economic prospects and wondering whether it will still be in business in a year's time. As we know, local newspapers are going out of business every week.
	All those sectors face competition from the BBC, and that has always been a matter for concern, but the disparity between the amount available to commercial media and that available to the BBC has now become enormous, and it is distorting the market. For the first time, the BBC's income will exceed the total advertising revenue of the entire commercial sector. That gap will grow to more than £1 billion.

Philip Davies: Does my hon. Friend agree that, as opposed to the BBC press release masquerading as the Liberal Democrat spokesman's speech, even if the motion were to be passed today, that would not comprise a cut in BBC expenditure? The motion would simply result in the BBC's not being given a further increase in funding. It is nothing to do with a cut to the BBC's funding, anyway.

John Whittingdale: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The Conservatives are entirely familiar with the claim that there will be cuts when in fact we are talking about a slightly reduced increase in expenditure.

Andy Burnham: The hon. Gentleman is of course absolutely right to describe the pressure on established media businesses, but, given that, will the public get the quality of media they deserve if the licence fee is cut? How can the public in this country get the quality of media they deserve and that democracy needs if the licence fee is to be cut?

John Whittingdale: We simply cannot ignore the environment in which the BBC is operating. That is not to say that the BBC does not do masses of things that are essential. However, my question is whether it needs £3.6 billion to do them. The BBC will always point to its comedy, drama, children's television, regional television and its religion, arts and education coverage. However, just because the BBC produced "Cranford", "Life in Cold Blood" or "Panorama" does not necessarily justify £3.6 billion. We have to ask whether we need all the channels that the BBC produces. BBC 3 has cost more than £500 million since it was set up, and to be honest I do not believe that the amount of product that has appeared on BBC 3 justifies that amount.
	The Secretary of State said that "The BBC is there to provide content that the commercial sector would not". I entirely agree, but too often the BBC is providing content that looks very similar, if not wholly identical, to the content that the commercial sector provides. One has to ask whether it is justified for the BBC to go on paying the amount that it does in recruiting talent, top salaries, competing against commercial providers and, as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey said, bidding against commercial television to acquire imported American television or to acquire Hollywood movies—in that case, the only beneficiaries are the Hollywood studios.
	The BBC does not need all the money it receives and, in the longer term, we need to be having a bigger debate necessarily about whether the BBC needs this amount or that amount, but about how we can sustain public service broadcasting in this country. There is a desperate crisis, and it is essential that the BBC is not left as the sole provider of public service broadcasting. If we are to sustain plurality, we must support commercial providers' continuing to provide public service programming. That might well need public support, and the obvious source for that is the licence fee.
	Is it more in the interests of the public and the viewing public in this country that we should go on sustaining BBC 3 or yet another American import, or should we be using that money to ensure that regional news does not just appear on the BBC but continues to be broadcast on ITV? Should there be other providers of children's programming outside the BBC? I welcome that debate, which Lord Carter is currently conducting, but those points have to be taken into account in this debate.
	There is very little time, but I want to finish by saying that I am profoundly disturbed by the comments made by the chairman of the BBC Trust, which was set up to be different from the board of governors. It was supposed to be an arm's length regulator, yet increasingly the chairman of the trust appears to be a champion of the BBC. When he suggests that it was somehow wrong for the Opposition to table this motion today, I have to say that he is straying on to political territory, which is very dangerous. He is also questioning the right of Parliament to determine the appropriate level of funding for the BBC. Of course Parliament should not interfere in the BBC's editorial independence, but debating the right amount of public money to go to the BBC is not interfering in editorial independence. It is a function of this House. If the chairman of the trust is suggesting that we should not be having this debate, I believe that he is in severe danger of overstepping the mark. I hope that he will think very carefully before continuing to make that argument.

Austin Mitchell: The Opposition's pathetic and opportunistic proposal tells us more about the intellectual decline of the Conservative party, and of its Front-Bench team in particular, than it does about the crucial problem of communications—that is, how we maintain and defend the quality of public service broadcasting in this country. The motion before us does nothing at all about that.
	I expected to see the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale) sitting and squirming with embarrassment through the deluge of rubbish poured on us by his Front Bench spokesman. The Opposition's agenda has been revealed to be top-slicing the BBC's licence fee—that is the unstated purpose of the motion—and the fact that he at least had the courage to make that specific merely demonstrates that the intellectual rot has affected even him.

Philip Davies: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Austin Mitchell: I always give way to Shipley.

Philip Davies: And I am very grateful too, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that top-slicing was recommended by the Select Committee as a whole? He will not have failed to notice that the Committee has a Labour majority.

Austin Mitchell: I do not want to embark on top-slicing, and neither does the National Union of Journalists or anyone with a real concern for public service broadcasting. Once top-slicing starts, it never stops. If it starts, we shall end up with what happened when I was in New Zealand. There, the licence fee was frozen and never increased, with the result that demand for commercials to be broadcast on the public service broadcasting channel kept on growing.
	The motion shows that today's Conservative party has very little noblesse and damn all oblige. The spirit of Willie Whitelaw, a man who was generous to the BBC and to public service broadcasting, is frankly dead. The Opposition are clearly obsessed with the cost of everything, but care little for a valued institution such as the BBC. When the Tory Front-Bench spokesman made his speech, he was surrounded by the boot boys of the Tory party, but most of them have left to do their boot work somewhere else. His was an intellectually feeble argument, and I am pleased to see that the Tory grandees are not participating in it.
	The BBC has its faults, and we could go on about them at length. I wish that I had been paid the sort of salary that Jonathan Ross gets—I used to present a programme called "24 Hours A Day" and I was worth it—but there is no need to go on about the BBC's faults, as all big organisations have them. Freezing or cutting the annual licence fee increase would secure only pathetic savings and, once we embarked on such a process, it would never stop. What would happen next year, or the year after? Another cut would be proposed.
	The motion shows that the Tory party is reneging on the licence fee, which has been the basis for the financing of public service television over the years. It has been ring-fenced to the BBC to provide quality in public broadcasting through culture programmes, children's programmes and regional services. The latter are very important in Yorkshire, and the BBC provides all the services from which ITV is pulling out. Are the Opposition arguing that, because ITV is cutting its public service obligations, we should force the BBC to do the same? Is that the essence of their argument—that, because ITV has had to make sacrifices, we should impose sacrifices on the BBC?
	That is totally illogical. The BBC is the bastion and guardian of public service television in this country. Are the Opposition suggesting that the money saved on the licence fee should go to ITV, or are they proposing these savage cuts just to make the BBC show the same sacrifice as ITV? If so, that argument is illogical.

Edward Vaizey: The argument is that the money should go back to the licence fee payer—the taxpayer.

Austin Mitchell: Well, that would be a very generous donation to everybody. That would make no difference to most people's cost of living. It is a futile gesture—and one that the Conservatives will want to repeat next year. We cannot suddenly impose such a cut in the third year of a six-year settlement. It was far from a generous settlement—it led to redundancies at the BBC when it was reached—but the BBC is working on the basis of it. The organisation needs stability. It is implementing a decision to make efficiency savings of 2 per cent. a year, and is doing quite well in that respect; the process is producing more redundancies than I would like. The BBC needs stability to plan and organise its resources for the long term, and the six-year settlement gives it that stability.
	The Opposition suddenly want to take back that settlement. They want to interfere and stop it. That is crazy; it is just illogical. One would not run a sensible business in that fashion. The measure would mean the immediate loss of £75 million to the BBC. By 2012-13, the cumulative loss would be £325 million. Where, according to the Opposition, should those economies come from? Should they come from children's programmes, or from cutting BBC 3 or BBC 4? Should they come from cutting out local radio altogether? That would save £100 million; that is just £25 million more than the cut that would need to be made in the first year under the proposal. Should we close down Radios 1, 2 and 3? Is that what the Opposition are saying? Where will the economies come from to produce the cut? There is no case for it, and there is every argument against it. The Opposition's proposals are just a piece of opportunistic vandalism, which, as I say, shows the sad decline in the Tory party. They are a foretaste of what is undoubtedly to come, as the Tories re-screen their magnum opus, "Carry on Cutting"—cut, slash and burn.

William Cash: In an intervention on my party's Front-Bench spokesman, I raised the question of the BBC's accounts, for an important reason. A number of us, including the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and the hon. Member for Maldon and East Chelmsford (Mr. Whittingdale), who is the Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, have raised the matter time and again. All the arguments that we heard, including those of the Liberal spokesman, the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster)—he apparently got his arguments from the finance director of the BBC—and all the arguments about the extent to which we are talking about value for money ultimately depend on whether we can see the accounts. I do not need to repeat the point; if we do not have a proper method of referring the accounts to the Public Accounts Committee, a lot of the analysis in this debate is completely worthless, because we do not really know.
	In the same way, in-house productions are a cosy contractual arrangement, in many instances. That means that we do not really know whether they are sufficiently competitive with independent producers. I understand that "Panorama"—I hope that I am not wrong—has 40 programmes a year, of which 30 are in-house. If we are to have a thriving, competitive television and radio industry, it really does matter that we have accurate figures on how the various organisations operate in competition with one another.
	I agree with my hon. Friend about the "Today" programme and the remarks made by the chairman of the BBC Trust today. Sarah Montague performed an interesting and important service today. It is the first time I have heard a presenter on any BBC programme raise the question of pay, expenses and allowances in the BBC. I am afraid that the Minister did not deal with that point. He quoted what the chairman of the trust said. I heard what the chairman said, and I have it written down. He referred to the trustees' expenses, and, I think, to the board. He did not deal with the whole BBC employment structure; that is very important. I pay tribute to Sarah Montague for asking the questions that she did, and to the people who were no doubt behind her, who ensured not only that the questions were asked, but that she challenged the chairman of the trust when he tried to duck the issue.
	My hon. Friend is right. I have written extensively to Mark Thompson and before that to Michael Grade, and I have had a series of meetings with directors-general over the past 10 or 12 years or more. I have written to them on many, many occasions about the way in which the BBC functions in terms of impartiality and bias, but I have never had the kind of replies that I would have expected.
	I believe in the BBC. It is an enormously important concept and it does an enormous amount of good, but it must operate on the basis of proper impartiality and accuracy. I am afraid that when one looks at the guidelines and then at the charter, it is evident that the guidelines are largely written for the benefit of getting the BBC to be able to control the conduct of editorial policy. The charter is much clearer. It refers to the question of impartiality in relation to public policy. Frequently we find ourselves caught up in the argument about whether the BBC is partial or impartial, according to party policy. That is not the issue. There are many subjects on which it is essential that the BBC should focus impartially on public policy, not merely party policy.
	We are about to move forward in an extensive and necessary reform of Parliament. Our Parliament has become a sham and it is essential that we address the problems ourselves. It is essential that we look at the BBC in the same light. It is important that the BBC provides from within itself the processes of regulation and self-regulation to ensure that we get what the BBC is capable of producing. It has been and it can be a first- class organisation. I strongly believe that we need a system of enforcement of the BBC's obligations in relation to impartiality and inaccuracy. That is important for the BBC, as Sarah Montague made clear this morning. It is essential for the BBC as a whole, from the director-general downwards.
	There has been a severe lack of impartiality on a very big issue that is before the electorate—the European question. There has been a failure to address that— [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) says, the BBC has admitted that. I have the papers and correspondence that I have had with the BBC on that subject. It is important for this good reason: if we are to reform our Parliament, we must ensure that we return power where it belongs.
	The BBC has more power and influence in many respects—probably in most respects—than Parliament. The best way to keep a secret is to make a speech in the House of Commons. The BBC's presenters and interviewers can ask questions and supplementaries, and they can do things that we cannot do, but we are elected. I am sure they understand that, but I wish they would demonstrate it rather more and make sure that they are as impartial as we believe they should be, and as we try to be in this place.

Robert Wilson: I am a supporter of the BBC and value its history. I had intended to spend some time talking about the great contribution that the BBC has made to this country and the world over many years. That was until I heard Sir Michael Lyons this morning on the radio, so I will take all that good stuff as read. On Radio 4 he suggested that if Parliament stopped the rise in the licence fee, it was a recipe for curbing the independence of the BBC. What absolute nonsense. It strays dangerously into politics. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash) was right about that, and Sir Michael should have stayed well away from the issue, because the public no longer trust the BBC rigorously to enforce balance as it once did and was once famous for. The latest reported indiscretions involve the complaints that the BBC Trust upheld about the accuracy and bias of Jeremy Bowen in an article that he published marking the 40th anniversary of the six-day war. The trust said that Bowen
	"should have done more to explain that there were alternative views on the subject which had some weight".
	That breach of impartiality guidelines underlines the BBC's failure in recent years to stop its innate liberal bias from turning into unbalanced reporting. The BBC's pro-metropolitan, liberal attitude is well documented. Some of the most significant work on the topic was compiled by ex-BBC producer Antony Jay for the Centre for Policy Studies. In his pamphlet entitled, "Confessions of a Reformed BBC Producer", he describes the tribal-like mentality of BBC employees. Jay claims that BBC staff worked and socialised with people who have the same experiences and believe in the same principles, naturally reinforcing their pre-existing prejudices. Jay confessed:
	"We so rarely encountered any coherent opposing arguments that we took our group-think as the views of all right-thinking people."
	More recently, Andrew Marr famously described the BBC as not "impartial or neutral", arguing that it had a "cultural liberal bias" due to the type of people who were attracted to work there.
	The European elections in June represent a particularly difficult challenge for the BBC: licence fee payers expect the BBC not only to give a fair hearing for the major political parties, but to report impartially on the debate between European integrationists and Eurosceptics. So far, it has been a challenge too far. An internal report for the BBC in 2005 found that its news suffered from an "institutional mindset" that led to a
	"reluctance to question pro-EU assumptions".
	It said that the BBC journalists are ignorant of how the EU works and have failed to show how much of British policy originates in Brussels, and it criticised managers who
	"appear insufficiently self-critical about standards of impartiality".
	The report concluded that
	"the BBC is getting it wrong, and our main conclusion is that urgent action is required to put this right".
	Unfortunately, urgent action has not been forthcoming. Another internal investigation in 2007 accused the BBC of trendy left-wing bias and stated that it was guilty of omitting opinions that were
	"off limits in terms of a liberal-minded comfort zone".
	The report noted that the BBC had come late to several important issues, including Euroscepticism and immigration.
	The BBC's liberal obsession with multiculturalism means that it has become completely out of touch with large swathes of the country. The corporation has effectively censured the topics that people care about, because of its culture of uber-political correctness. That is also why the BBC gives a fairer hearing to trendy left-wing organisations such as Amnesty International and Liberty yet treats spokespeople for the Countryside Alliance and Migrationwatch UK as eccentric bores.

David Anderson: Hear, hear!

Robert Wilson: Thank you very much.
	The BBC continues to demonstrate scant regard for balance and decency. At the heart of the issue, I fear, is the lack of willpower on the part of BBC senior executives to stand up to its high-profile broadcasters and performers. The BBC cares more about its high-profile and well-paid employees than about the people who actually pay their wages. That is why my constituents, like my colleagues, will not accept willingly an increase in this TV tax.

Several hon. Members: rose —

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I have a difficulty, because the Secretary of State would like to make a short reply and the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) is entitled to have the last word; perhaps, though, he is not interested in having it.

Philip Davies: May I have two minutes?

Mr. Deputy Speaker: Mr. Davies can have one minute, and I will allow the balance to the Secretary of State.

Philip Davies: I am sure that one minute is about as much as people will be able to stomach from me anyway; your judgment is wise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
	The issue before us is whether the BBC needs an increase in funding. I have been prompted to speak because of the appalling mathematics that have been on show in the House, particularly from the hon. Members for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) and for Bath (Mr. Foster). The issue is not about making a cut to the BBC's income, but about not giving the BBC an increase. When somebody's pay is frozen, it is frozen, not cut—they have just not been given an increase. The BBC's problem is that it sees no increase as a cut, because it has become so feather-bedded by the licence fee and the taxpayer. It has become totally out of touch with the economic reality faced by everybody else.
	I should like to make a particular point before I conclude. The BBC is supposed to be for the whole country, but recently, for example, it made a decision about horse racing, which is a sport that cuts across the social divide like nothing else. The BBC is trying to abandon such projects to go for the high-profile stuff; it completely lacks a good sense of priorities. It should concentrate on things that the British people as a whole want. The issue is about priorities. The BBC does not need all this increase, and that is why I will support the motion.

Andy Burnham: With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to make a few brief comments in conclusion. It has been an excellent debate. The hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) made an excellent speech, and said two things with which I profoundly agree. He said that the BBC does not always get things right; he was right to say that, and it is right for it to be acknowledged. He also said that the BBC was not safe in Tory hands, and some of the views emanating from the Conservative Benches this afternoon made that point abundantly clear to anybody who cared to pay attention. The argument from those Members was that the rest of the media industry was under pressure, so the BBC should be under pressure—the quality of all the media must go down. That is an awful argument.
	There was a revealing moment when the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) was asked where the money would be found. The hon. Gentleman went over the line that we should never cross. He started saying that he would make cuts to the number of imported programmes; he said that he might offer up "The Wire". That was a very revealing moment about Tory meddling in the BBC.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Selby (Mr. Grogan), chair of the all-party BBC group, said that Tory policy on broadcasting is about scrapping impartiality in non-public service broadcasting news. It is also about allowing product placement. That strategy would see the quality of TV news and broadcasting go right downhill, and the public do not want that. The Tories' real policy is to cut the licence fee and top-slice—
	 One and a half hours having elapsed since the commencement of proceedings on the motion, the Deputy Speaker put the Question (Standing Orders No s . 16(1) and 17(2) and Order, 18 May) .
	 The House proceeded to a Division.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I ask the Serjeant at Arms to investigate the delay in the Aye Lobby.

The House having divided: Ayes 156, Noes 334.

Question accordingly negatived.

Crispin Blunt: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. There are now at least 25 flags of a proscribed terrorist organisation flying over Parliament square. You will have heard numerous points of order about the obstruction, expense and conduct of the Tamil demonstration. Although I understand that decisions about the conduct of public order are an operational matter for the police, the message being sent out about our tolerance of terrorism is a wider policy matter of importance to us all. I would invite you, as a matter of urgency, to communicate to the relevant authorities the view that the unimpeded and open support of a terrorist organisation in front of Parliament sends the most unhelpful wider message about the conduct of our counter-terrorist strategy.

Mr. Deputy Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me notice that he was going to raise that point of order, which I am sure will be of concern to the whole House. Mr. Speaker has expressed his own concerns about what is happening in Parliament square and all its implications, but as the hon. Gentleman knows, we do not have the full scope of authority to deal with the situation. However, I am grateful to him for putting the latest situation on the record, and I am sure that the relevant authorities will take note.

PETITIONS

Economic and Voting Scales

Gerald Kaufman: I wish to present a petition in the name of my constituent, Mr. Martin Burke.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of Mr. Martin Burke,
	Declares that Mr. Martin Burke of 'Elizabeth Regina Love' has written to several Members of the Commons and Lords individually and collectively in the past three years and now wishes to introduce himself and address the Commons as a whole;
	Further declares that Mr. Burke worked on his own initiative since 2005 and made a contribution to the resolution of several national and international emergencies: 7/7; Northern Ireland; Iraq; Afghanistan; entrenching democracy in Pakistan; Darfur; the Burma cyclone; the North Korea nuclear crisis; the Royal Navy prisoners in Iran; the Lebanon War 2006; the development of the Palestinian state; relations with Russia, Zimbabwe, Gaza and Sri Lanka, and with others;
	Further declares that prior to 'Elizabeth Regina Love' (est. 2004) Mr. Burke carried out fundamental work in the field of Economics and Mathematics, discovering and defining a new mathematical object in 1997, the General Economic Measurement Scale, simple illustrations of which were prepared for the Bank of England in 2005; notes that until this time the science of Economics did not have a defined measurement scale; further notes that an eminent academic confirmed no prior literature in 2006; further notes that the General Democratic Voting Scale was defined in 2007; further notes that these objects can be seen at www.eheartr.com and have been accepted by the British Library; further notes that the symbol for 'Elizabeth Regina Love' is by invitation of the Lord Chamberlain on behalf of the Queen; further notes that Mr. Burke works independently and on his own initiative and this is his petition; and further notes that these objects have not previously been reported in  Hansard.
	The Petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons bears in mind the General Economic Measurement Scale and the General Democratic Voting Scale in its work on the current challenges facing the country and in its future law making, and uses them in its thinking, whatever the consequences to the petitioner of the small parts played by him in the above declared events; and the petitioner further requests that the House accepts these objects for inclusion in the House of Commons Library where Members can see them.
	And the Petitioner remains, etc.
	[P000370]

Schools (Yorkshire)

Dari Taylor: I beg leave to present to the House a petition signed by 6,000 residents, the majority of whom are parents of young children, and who live in Ingleby Barwick, a residential area in my constituency. They are requesting that the Government locate the rebuilding of Egglescliffe school in the Preston Park area of Stockton-on-Tees, so that the school will serve the two communities of Ingleby Barwick and Egglescliffe, delivering excellent education to all children.
	The petition states:
	The Petition of residents of Barwick, and others,
	Declares that providing a secondary school of 900 places in or on the periphery of Barwick would offer choice and diversity to the parents and children of Ingleby Barwick, improve standards of education for children, and would allow children to be educated locally within their town; believes that this could be achieved by moving the secondary school currently based in Egglescliffe to Preston (within the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees) so that children from both areas could attend the school.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to support the request made by parents to move the secondary school currently based in Egglescliffe to Preston (within the Borough of Stockton-on-Tees) so that children from both areas could attend the school.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000372]

Roads (Cheshire)

Mike Hall: This petition relates to a road proposal being brought forward by Cheshire West and Chester local authority to link the Winnington urban village to the A556. The proposed road will pass through the Hartford part of my constituency and through a conservation area. If this had been a planning application, it would have been refused. However, because it is a road scheme, it is being permitted to go ahead. Unfortunately, the work started on Monday. This petition has been collected by the Hartford civic society and contains more than 800 names.
	To the House of Commons:
	The Petition of residents of Hartford, and others:
	The proposed slip road to be built at Bradburns Lane and Chester Road will destroy a triangular grassed area with an ancient fountain, leading to the irreversible loss of a major village feature; further declares that the proposals ignore the area's status as a designated conservation area; believes that the slip road will offer no benefit to Hartford residents and that it would only marginally improve traffic flow from Winnington Urban Village; further believes that the slip road would be a waste of £500,000 of public money; and supports the Hartford Civic Society, the Parish Council and the Borough Conservation Manager in their opposition to the proposed slip road.
	The Petitioners therefore request that the House of Commons urges the Government to take whatever action possible to prevent the construction of the slip road at Bradburns Lane and Chester Road.
	And the Petitioners remain, etc.
	[P000374]

CLATTERBRIDGE CENTRE FOR ONCOLOGY

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. —(Mr. Frank Roy.)

Ben Chapman: I am delighted to have secured this debate on the Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology. It is an immensely valuable institution and a source of pride to the local community, but I fear that it is none the less under a degree of threat. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Field) would have liked to be here, but was unable to be. He has asked me to say that he supports my campaign to prevent moves that could damage the services provided at the CCO. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford) has been similarly supportive throughout the campaign and in this context.

Stephen Hesford: I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. May I remind him of a meeting that we had with the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Brentford and Isleworth (Ann Keen), whom I am pleased to see in her place tonight? Does he remember that that meeting was not wholly positive? Is that one of the reasons he feels the need to bring the matter before the House of Commons? May I urge him to continue his work in this regard?

Ben Chapman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I well remember that meeting with the Minister. Of course, she was listening then, as I hope she will do tonight to the points that we are about to make.
	Max, the son of my hon. Friend the Member for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami), was given radiotherapy treatment at Clatterbridge prior to having a bone marrow transplant, and my hon. Friend—whom I am delighted to see here—is unstinting in his praise for the services provided there.
	I want to say a few words about the history, which illustrates the CCO's long-standing contribution to cancer services in Britain and to its locality. The centre's roots date back over a century to the Liverpool hospital for cancer and diseases of the skin, which was established in 1862. In 1882, the hospital moved to a new site and was renamed the Radium Institute. The first Roentgen ray apparatus was purchased in 1901 and the centre gradually developed into one of the two major radiotherapy centres in the north-west of England. The centre has been at Clatterbridge since the early 1950s. It has provided chemotherapy since the 1970s, and CCO consultants were among the first to use multiple-drug chemotherapy. Today, the centre is thriving. It became a foundation trust hospital in 2006. Patient numbers are continually rising, with an average of 50 treated on each accelerator every day. Over 7,000 new patients are registered at the hospital each year.
	The CCO has received significant investment in recent years and is now one of the best-equipped radiotherapy centres in Britain. Facilities include nine linear accelerators, which I am going to call "linacs", a cobalt unit, superficial and orthovoltage X-ray machines, two simulators, two scanners, tomography simulators and so forth. The centre places great emphasis on research and development, regularly participating in national and international clinical trails. It employs 650 staff, most of whom live locally. Any diminution of services would thus be damaging not just to the hospital but to the community.
	In addition to the CCO's importance locally and to patients, it is recognised at national level as an outstanding NHS foundation trust. The Healthcare Commission rated it as excellent for quality and use of resources; and Monitor awarded the CCO green for governance and the provision of mandatory services, and gave it 5—the highest possible mark—for financial viability. It is in excellent financial shape.
	The quality of the treatment provided is matched by the service delivery record. There is no waiting time for chemotherapy at the CCO, with 66 per cent. delivered in outreach clinics—the highest rate in the country. That is important for the comfort and convenience of patients.

Peter Kilfoyle: I know what a redoubtable defender and advocate my hon. Friend is of Clatterbridge hospital and the fine services it provides. That is to his credit, but will he say a little more about the plans for outreach across other hospitals in the region? I know that both he and I support that outreach in order to ensure that the excellent services currently provided get to a wider audience.

Ben Chapman: I am grateful, as ever, to my hon. Friend, who takes a considerable and continuing interest in this subject. I will of course deal with the issue he raises as I develop my speech.
	Despite the CCO's impressive record in the provision of services and its importance locally and nationally, its future is to a degree under threat. The crux of the issue is that the Merseyside and Cheshire Cancer Network has put forward proposals for two satellite sites with linacs used in radiotherapy treatment. One satellite at Aintree, to be run as a CCO operation, has been agreed and no one contests that it will make an important contribution to providing accessible services for those living in and around Liverpool. However, I am not sure that the case has been made—my hon. Friend may well disagree with me on this point—for a second satellite at the Royal Liverpool hospital, only 5 miles from Aintree. Let me say a little more about this.
	What are the reasons put forward in favour of these proposals? I am told that the two satellites are necessary to
	"meet demand for these services north of the River Mersey, as this area has some of the highest cancer death rates in the country".
	It is assumed that the establishment of a second satellite only 5 miles from the first will inevitably improve cancer outcomes in Liverpool and satisfy unmet demand. Clinical opinion at the CCO, however, states that patients from the region, and particularly in Liverpool, already receive the best treatments available and that the outcomes following diagnosis are similar to the national rate. In fact, the cancer reform strategy and the north-west cancer plan both argue that late diagnosis is the major contributing factor to poor cancer survival rates. There is no evidence to suggest that providing more non-surgical oncology services in a given area—in this case, in Liverpool city centre—would have a direct impact on survival rates. Improved screening programmes and public awareness campaigns are considered more likely to make a difference.
	A related argument presented in favour of a second satellite at the Royal is that Clatterbridge is too far away for patients in Liverpool and that more non-surgical oncology services, over and above those planned for Aintree, are necessary to improve access. I am not wholly convinced that cancer services cannot be accessed within a reasonable travel period by people in Liverpool, or more generally in the Cheshire and Merseyside area that the CCO covers. The cancer reform strategy recommends that travel times to services should not exceed 45 minutes, and 92 per cent. of CCO patients travel by car, ambulance or taxi and are able to obtain their treatments within that time—and in many cases more quickly. When the Aintree site is fully functioning, times will be even shorter.
	I want to emphasise that I accept the need for some non-surgical oncology services to be provided at a satellite in Liverpool. Along with the CCO and others involved, I very much support the establishment of the site at Aintree, which the CCO will provide. However, in that light, it is very difficult to see why we need a second site only five miles away. Projections suggest that the Aintree site will provide enough linacs to meet demand until 2017, so the second satellite will lead to overcapacity. Resources, which are always finite, will be hard pressed in the current economic climate; and it seems to me that overcapacity in Liverpool across the two sites will inevitably lead to a reduction of services at the CCO.
	Furthermore, even if it could be proved that there is a need for additional linacs beyond those already provided at the CCO and at the Aintree satellite, that would not necessarily provide an argument for the establishment of a second site. Surely it would be logical and cost-effective to increase the number of linacs at Aintree. I am told that the site could incorporate that, and it would prevent the expenditure involved in building another site.
	All this must be seen in the context of wider proposals for relocating the CCO to Liverpool, which are outlined in the Baker review. There is now general agreement that such a move, which would cost approximately £150 million, is inconceivable in the current economic climate, and it has been put on the back burner for at least the next five years. However, the chairman of Cheshire and Merseyside strategic health authority has confirmed that it is the "direction of travel" towards 2020.
	That bothers me. I challenge the fundamental assumption that the primary centre for non-surgical oncology services in the region should necessarily be in Liverpool. The existing Clatterbridge location is liked by patients, it ain't broke, it is a pleasant environment and, as I have said, it makes an important contribution to the local community. To move it would involve unnecessary and unwise expenditure, and in my view the idea has no obvious merit. Furthermore, proposals to move the centre seem to reflect a city-centric point of view. In fact, the CCO serves Cheshire and Merseyside and, as we have just heard, part of north Wales—Alyn and Deesside—and in that sense it is centrally located.
	The case that the Royal is a desirable location for these services rests on two central arguments. The first is that it would allow cancer services to be in close physical proximity to acute facilities. Although I see the merits of that argument, it does not necessarily provide a reason for the centre to be moved to Liverpool. The CCO is about 15 minutes' drive from Arrowe Park Hospital. It is also developing its own high-dependency unit to support patients who become acutely ill during their treatment at the centre.
	Secondly, it has been argued that the Royal location has advantages in terms of its academic links. However, the first satellite is to be built on the campus of the University Hospitals Aintree NHS Foundation Trust, which enjoys the same status as the Royal in terms of well-established academic links with Liverpool university. It seems to me that there is some confusion between academic status and proximity to the university itself. Moreover, the CCO is committed to developing its academic links and research. I am not convinced that the case for relocation at the Royal has been fully demonstrated either by the arguments about its acute facilities or by those about its academic links.
	As I have said, for the time being there are no clear plans for a full-scale relocation, but I fear that, in the short term, the creation of a second satellite may constitute a piecemeal development, which the Cancer Network, the Royal and PCTs hope will eventually lead to the establishment of a cancer centre at the Royal. The second satellite was originally suggested in the context of relocation of the whole centre, in the light of the Baker report. It does not make sense on its own merits. However, the Cancer Network and PCTs preferred to push on regardless, apparently on the primary basis that if the money was available, why not?
	This raises important question about how decisions are made about cancer services in the region. I am deeply concerned that PCTs, which have the power to determine the expenditure of large amounts of money—for instance, on the establishment of the proposed satellites—are, in my experience, only notionally accountable and often, I am afraid, profligate. They have not consulted me or other local Members of Parliament—or as far as I am aware, others—about the current round of proposals. If the PCTs are only notionally accountable, the Cancer Network is wholly unaccountable. Although it can only make recommendations rather than decisions, the PCTs do not appear to have probed its proposals sufficiently before endorsing them.
	There is a clear need for cancer services in the region to be viewed on a strategic basis. Resources must be allocated and services located in a logical and transparent way, based on an assessment of the current and future needs of all local people and on expert advice.
	I have described the CCO as a centre of excellence, and as such it is worth protecting for a number of reasons. It houses an impressive concentration of services and expertise, and continues to develop, improve and carry out research. As such, it is in a strong position to attract investment. In the current economic climate, funding will of course be scarce. Public money must be used even more wisely and cautiously than usual. If services are salami-sliced away from Clatterbridge with no clear plan, and cancer services in Merseyside are spread across multiple sites, no one institution in the area will draw the substantial funding that will be required in future years. Furthermore, if services are gradually moved from Clatterbridge, eroding the critical mass, the centre may well suffer a loss of confidence. It will fail to attract the best qualified staff, and it may start to decline.
	I suspect that the Minister will reply to me on the basis of drafts provided by the strategic health authority and the Cancer Network. However, in none of the correspondence that I have received from either of those organisations is there any evidence that they have taken account of the views of the CCO, or, indeed, of the concerns expressed by me and my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, West. Can the Minister assure me that she will take account of them in her response, and may I tell her that although what is proposed is euphemistically presented merely as a long-term "direction of travel", in my view it is a wrong direction for which the case remains unproven and the costs very large?

Ann Keen: I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Ben Chapman) on securing the debate. He has shown an acute interest in the welfare of his local health services, and in particular the cancer services, and I commend him for the dedication with which he serves the needs of his constituents. I am also pleased that my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral, West (Stephen Hesford), for Alyn and Deeside (Mark Tami) and for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Kilfoyle) are present.
	On 3 December 2007, the Government launched the cancer reform strategy, which sets out plans to improve further and develop cancer services across England over the next five years. It includes measures to improve cancer prevention, speed up the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, reduce inequalities, ensure that care is delivered in the most appropriate settings, and ensure that patients can access effective new treatments quickly. I am sure that we all can remember that at the time when our Labour Government came to power, patients with cancer were having to wait for many months, and sometimes a year or more, for treatment. The latest published data show that 93.9 per cent. of patients diagnosed with cancer start their treatment at the Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology within 62 days of referral from their GP. That represents remarkable progress, and I commend the efforts of the staff in making it possible, backed, of course, by the financial commitment of the Government. We must not be complacent, however, and we must do more to achieve even more progress.
	I have listened carefully to the arguments of my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South in support of the CCO. I am informed, as was stated at our meeting, that the Merseyside and Cheshire Cancer Network undertook on behalf of local NHS organisations a review of how and where patients in the area who require cancer treatment might receive it in future. Its purpose was to ensure that the aspirations of our Government's cancer reform strategy are achieved locally.
	The current situation in Merseyside is that most patients who require cancer treatment and who live north of the River Mersey travel to the CCO for that treatment. I am also advised—this is very worrying—that residents living north of the River Mersey experience the highest rate of cancer deaths in the locality. Indeed, the figures are some of the highest nationally.

Ben Chapman: If it is the case that a higher level of cancer deaths are suffered north of the river, would that not best be tackled by early diagnosis? I have seen no evidence that the travel time makes that statistic at all difficult.

Ann Keen: I hope that, as my speech progresses, we will come to a greater understanding of that issue.
	I should restate that these are among the highest figures nationally, and currently these patients north of the Mersey, who make up 67 per cent. of the Mersey and Cheshire Cancer Network, face longer journey times to the CCO for treatment that may last only a matter of minutes. The review therefore made several recommendations. One of them was to look at the possibility of relocating some services from the CCO to the Royal Liverpool university hospital.
	I am advised, and I understand that my hon. Friend has been too, that there is no immediate proposal to relocate the Clatterbridge centre to Liverpool in the foreseeable future. There is a recommendation to that effect by 2020, but that would require the development and approval of a formal business case, and full public consultation. I understand that the strategic outline case for these proposals will not even be complete until 2010-11.
	At this stage, I should also point out that the configuration of services is a matter for the NHS locally. I am also happy to restate that no decisions on these proposals have been taken. It would therefore be totally inappropriate for me to intervene in this locally driven process or to comment on the options available. However, I am assured that any potential relocation will be subject to due diligence, and that the process will be objective, transparent and robust and will take account of all stakeholders.

Stephen Hesford: My hon. Friend rightly says that if no decision has been taken and there remains an interest in the process of reaching any decision, it might be premature for her to intervene, but surely in order for that process to give consideration to the right principles and the right issues she can take an oversight view. When one is talking about potentially spending £150 million of public money in the wrong direction—my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Ben Chapman) says that this is the wrong direction—surely that is a matter for her to examine and have a view on.

Ann Keen: I thank my hon. Friend for the intervention because it gives us the opportunity to state again, as was made clear at our recent meeting in the Department of Health, that we should get involved in the process and that hon. Members must be involved in it. The cancer strategy and the cancer team were present at the meeting. I commend those present, as Members of Parliament for the area, for continuing to push for their constituents—that is what we expect them to do in this House—but at the same time they must have regard for local decision making, the way in which the consultation will be drawn up and how it is difficult at this moment for me to intervene in any way other than the way in which I am trying to help tonight.
	I understand that these proposals were agreed in spring 2008 by all eight commissioning primary care trust boards. Again, this will facilitate access to treatment for patients who endure some of the worst cancer outcomes in the country. We must commend PCTs in Cheshire and Merseyside for taking steps to address these issues. I must stress that these proposals concern providing additional radiotherapy services in the Merseyside area to meet the demand that I have outlined. I am assured that those additional services do not represent any removal of services from the Clatterbridge centre. In addition, I am informed there will be no job losses as a result of any of these proposals.

Ben Chapman: I apologise for intervening again, and I shall try not to do so again. Even if there is a case for transferring resource from Clatterbridge to Liverpool, such a move must reduce the critical mass at Clatterbridge. In any event, if such an approach is being taken, is there a case for having two facilities 5 miles apart—one at Aintree, where there is ample resource, and another elsewhere?

Ann Keen: The interventions are not a problem, because we have some time available to us. I know that this debate is important to hon. Members, and I welcome the opportunity to try to give reassurance wherever I can. Academic scientists and others are putting forward shocking figures to us that would lead hon. Members to develop their thoughts in that way.
	I must say again that I am assured that these additional services do not represent any removal of services from the Clatterbridge centre. This package of developments will, in fact, require significant increases in the oncology work force. Today's technology makes it possible to deliver most radiotherapy treatment close to where patients live. As typical radiotherapy treatments are delivered over a period of several days or weeks, it is beneficial to the patient to have to travel as little as possible to access this vital treatment—
	 Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 9(3)).
	 Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.— (Mr. Frank Roy.)

Ann Keen: I understand that a typical patient may make 15 daily visits to a radiotherapy unit during their treatment. I am informed that, based on optimum travel times for patients, the Aintree hospital in the north of the city was the preferred option. That will be a £15 million investment and will be funded and owned by the Clatterbridge centre, as well as operated by its specialist doctors, physicists and radiographers. I understand that the groundworks for a new building at Aintree hospital—I have noted that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton is in his place—are already underway, and that completion is planned by the end of 2010.

Peter Kilfoyle: For the avoidance of any confusion among people who may or may not read  Hansard, can the Minister confirm that two separate issues are under consideration? The first is about the extension of services to Aintree hospital in my constituency, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South (Ben Chapman) welcomes, as do I. The second debate is about what will happen down the track, but the current arrangements for Aintree hospital are welcomed by all parties.

Ann Keen: I am happy to reinforce that statement.
	More action is needed to address the provision of radiotherapy services for residents north of the Mersey. I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Wirral, South that clinical reports, such as the one produced by Dr. Cottier of the national cancer services analysis team review, suggest that the majority—67 per cent.—of cancer sufferers requiring treatment live north of the Mersey. The additional services at Aintree are currently estimated to provide only 30 per cent. of the population needs from the north of the Mersey, and the remaining 70 per cent. will still need to travel to Clatterbridge for their treatment, typically on numerous occasions.
	I am also informed that population and disease trend analysis suggests that demand for radiotherapy in Merseyside will rise by 26 per cent. by 2016, from a 2006 baseline. It is for these reasons that the Royal Liverpool University hospital has been identified as the preferred second location for additional radiotherapy services. I am informed that this proposal was put forward after considering the need for greater alignment of associated clinical services and specialist multidisciplinary teams for cancer. I also understand that the proposal has the potential to improve the strength of cancer research in Merseyside and Cheshire by developing closer links with the university of Liverpool and its Cancer Research UK centre, which, as my hon. Friend will agree, is an enormously valuable prospect.

Ben Chapman: I am taking advantage of the Minister's kindness in allowing me to intervene again.
	I cannot see why all those advantages cannot be gained by an extension of the location at Aintree, which has similar links to the University teaching hospital in Liverpool. I am just not persuaded that the case has been made for two locations. By all means let us provide better services for people north of the river, but why on two sites?

Ann Keen: I accept my hon. Friend's reluctance to accept my argument during this debate. I feel confident that the argument will continue outside the Chamber. I ask him to look at the figures and to accept that the link with the university of Liverpool and its Cancer Research UK centre is, as I am sure he will agree, an enormously valuable possibility.
	I am aware that Cheshire and Merseyside primary care trusts, with support from the cancer network, are in the process of developing a specification for the additional radiotherapy units. I have been informed that the latest position is that Cheshire and Merseyside PCTs will consider the proposal of additional radiotherapy provision north of the Mersey at Aintree and the Royal at their next round of board meetings in June of this year. It is important to note that this review, when fully implemented, will lead to a substantial investment in non-surgical oncology, as some £30 million is being invested to bring new radiotherapy treatment facilities north of the Mersey.
	However, it is equally important that services are improved for Wirral and western Cheshire patients at the Clatterbridge Centre for Oncology. It is crucial that any improvement builds on the current excellent performance and services offered to all patients by this specialist cancer trust, which was scored excellent for both quality of services and use of resources by the Healthcare Commission in 2007-08.
	I am assured that the proposal to tender the radiotherapy service at the Royal Liverpool hospital will be in line with national competition policy and NHS cancer commissioning guidance. I am informed that although the detail is yet to be concluded, it is likely that potential providers will be invited to put forward proposals that identify how they would source capital and what implications that would have for unit costs and tariff. Clearly, the tendering process will be a "commercial in confidence" exercise, and it would be inappropriate for me to comment further. However, I hope that the Clatterbridge centre will be able to tender for that additional capacity in due course.
	I am confident that my hon. Friend will continue to champion and support health services and, in particular, cancer services in his constituency—as will all those who have spoken in tonight's debate—and I encourage him to engage with the local organisations throughout the planning stages. The past 10 years have witnessed real progress in cancer services nationally. I hope that the proposals that he has brought to our attention today will make a real and tangible difference to the people of Merseyside. I know that the prevention of inequalities and the work that has to take place to reduce those figures and that worrying trend are also part of our work as Members of Parliament and as Ministers. I want to express my best wishes to all those involved in the process of achieving those aims.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 House adjourned.